


Running (to your heart?)

by Cozaure



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: A little angst but with comfort, Alternate Universe - High School, Annabeth Chase & Piper McLean Friendship, Annabeth Chase has a crush on Luke Castellan at the beginning, F/M, Friendship, Happy Ending, High School, Minor Jason Grace/Piper McLean, Misunderstandings, Running, Supportive Percy Jackson, Swimmer Percy Jackson, secret, sport
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:59:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23807278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cozaure/pseuds/Cozaure
Summary: Annabeth Chase has a crush on Luke Castellan, captain of the high school football team, since two years. When the football team organizes a race to raise money to buy new jerseys, and the main prize is a ticket to go to a local festival with Luke, Annabeth best friend's Piper try to convince her to participate. Problem: Annabeth is not a great runner. She painfully tries to start, but it's hard, and she doesn't think she'll be ready for the race... Luckily, Percy Jackson, her neighbour that is the same Latin class as her, offer to coach her.Quickly, Annabeth starts to wonder if she's more excited about : a) being better at running, b) the idea of winning the date with Luke, or c) spending time regularly with Percy...
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Comments: 22
Kudos: 62





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if there are still a lot of people who read Percy Jackson related fanfiction, but I recently read a lot of Percabeth fanfics, and it's one of my favorite couple, I find them really adorable, and perfect for each other. Plus, I find it easy to imagine and write alternate universe stories about them.  
> So here's my first Percy Jackson fanfiction, and my first multi chapters fanfiction in English!  
> It won't be a very long story, I know how everything will end, but when I'm writing, I often get carried away and write more than what I initially planned!  
> Anyway, I hope you'll like the beginning of this story!

Annabeth has never been an athlete. She never really liked sport before. She could enjoy playing a game of basketball with her friends, or watch the football game of the high school team with Piper – because Piper’s boyfriend, Jason, was in the team, so missing a game was not even a possibility, for Piper, and Piper was Annabeth best friend, and as Annabeth was a great friend, she would come with her to the games – or even do some physical activity times to times, mostly when it was in the context of a game. She never practised sport just for sport. She didn’t hate it, she just wasn’t finding any point in it. Well, she knew it was good for her health, and for her mind, but it wasn’t something she felt she had to do to be happy. She preferred staying home reading some books about her passions : architecture and history than going out and having to sweat. 

Unfortunately, even though Annabeth wasn’t an athlete, the boy she had a crush on was one. Luke Castellan was two years older than her, he was in senior year, in the football team with Jason – Luke was even the captain of the team! – but he was also known to be a great fencer, and a runner. He wasn’t that muscular, but he was fast, and agile, and had a great reading of the game. Of course, being the captain of the football team made him very popular, but that’s not why Annabeth had a crush on him. She had knew him before he was “popular” (and she actually couldn’t help but to be jealous of all the attention he was getting, now that everybody knew him, and she wanted to scream to all his “fans” : “Come on, I noticed him before, leave him alone!”. But of course, she couldn’t. It was both childish and egoist, and she had no right on Luke). Her crush on him began on the first day of high school: she was lost in the corridors, a little bit overwhelmed, afraid to be late for her first class. And Luke found her and guided her to the right classroom, with a confident smile on his lips: “I’m Luke, by the way, feel free to ask me if you ever need any help!”. 

From this day, they talked to each other times to times, but never regularly. However, this first meeting has been enough for Annabeth to notice how nice, how caring, how adorable Luke was. And so her crush on him began. She was doing everything she could to see him and talk to him, but she never really dared to go to speak with him. She didn’t want to bother him, and Luke always looked so busy! And who was she to just arrive and interrupt him when he was with his friends? 

Therefore, every time they talk, it was on Luke’s initiative. He would just see her alone in the corridors, and say “Hey, Annabeth, how are you doing today?” or making a comment about something she was doing or something we was wearing. However, it didn’t happen very often. He never really forgot Annabeth, but two years later, they were less and less talking to each other, and as it was Luke’s last year in high school, Annabeth knew well that after Luke would leave to go to college, she would never speak to him again. She wanted Luke to notice her, but didn’t know how to make it happen. 

Until one day, Piper met her at her locker, very excited : 

“Annabeth, Annabeth, I have the solution!” 

Annabeth looked at her, confused: 

“Are you talking about the math homework?”. 

Her best friend looked at her as if she was an hopeless case. 

“Come on Annabeth! Isn’t it something more important than the math homework, in your life?”

Before Annabeth could open her mouth to speak, Piper added: 

“And I’m not talking about the Latin exam! Something… or someone...”

“Are you talking about Luke?” 

Piper was Annabeth best friend since middle school. The two girls were very different, but maybe that’s why they were so complementary. Annabeth could help Piper for homework, and Piper had a lot of advices to give to Annabeth about dating. After all, Piper had a boyfriend, so she had experience in that field : she was the one who had to ask Jason out, the boy being shier than her! Since two years, Piper has been patiently listening to Annabeth longing for Luke, trying to convince her to finally go to speak to the boy. 

“Yes! Jason just told me the soccer team was organizing a race to raise money to pay for their new jersey!”

“Uh… Yes, that’s good for them, I guess…” 

Annabeth wasn’t exactly sure to see where was Piper wanted to go with this, and how it was related to her and her plan to seduce Luke.

“The race will be open to everyone in the school… Contestants just have to pay a 5 dollars fee… And the winner wins a ticket to go to the Spring festival with Luke!!”

“Wait… What??”

Piper was overexcited.

“You heard that? The prize is basically a date with Luke!! This is exactly what you need!!” 

The Sprint festival was an event organized yearly in their city, with music, games, and other shows, in a very familial atmosphere. Annabeth actually liked to go there with her friends, and even if it could be a family or friend activity, it could also be very romantic for couples. 

“But… We never saw Luke dating anyone in two years, and he’s just gonna go on a date with the winner of this race?” asked Annabeth, confused.

“Well, he didn’t exactly explain it like that, it’s more like, Luke will pay the ticket to enter to the festival, and the winner can either go with their friends, or stay with Luke. There will two winners : a boy and a girl, but I guess the boy will be Jason, and he will use the ticket to go to the festival with me, of course!” proudly smiled Piper. 

“I like how confident you are about Jason’s victory… But Piper, you know me, you know I’m not good at sports, I will never win this race!” 

“You don’t practice sport, Annabeth, that’s different! It doesn’t mean you’re bad at it! Besides, the race is in two months : it leaves you time for training! Jason and I can coach you, don’t worry!”

“No no no, don’t involve Jason in this, please!”

Piper was the only one who knew about Annabeth’s crush on Luke; and the last thing she needed was one of Luke’s teammate to know about it!

“Don’t involve Jason in what?” asked a voice behind Annabeth. 

She jumped and quickly turned around. Piper’s boyfriend was standing behind them, his sport bad on his shoulder. He reached out to Piper to quickly kiss her on the cheek.

“How was the practice, baby?” 

“Well, pretty intense, you know how Luke is! I’m exhausted, can’t wait to go home! But what were you talking about? I heard my name!”

Annabeth silently panicked. She didn’t even have time to talk with Piper about this idea!

“Oh, I was just telling Annabeth about the race you said the football team was going to organized!”

Jason smiled. 

“Oh yes it’s gonna be so great!”

“And wouldn’t it be great if Annabeth participated?” 

Jason looked surprised :

“I didn’t know you liked running Annabeth, but yes it would be awesome!”

“Well, about that… I’m not really a great runner”, answered Annabeth, uncomfortable.

“Don’t worry about that! Everyone is welcome, the important is not winning, but raising money for the team!”

“Yeah, except that I like to win when I enter things. So sorry, no, I don’t want to look ridiculous in front of the entire school!” she quickly decided while closing angrily her locker and walking towards the main entrance of the building. 

“But, Annabeth, wait, why are you so pissed?” asked Piper behind her, not understanding her friend’s angry mood. 

“Quit it, Piper, I won’t participate to this stupid run!” 

“Leave her alone for a while”, said softly Jason – and Annabeth thought that she would need to thank him for preventing Piper to run behind her. 

Annabeth didn’t want to go back home directly. She was still thinking about what Piper just said. How could her best friend think it was a great thing? It was actually the worst thing that could happen: Luke would have the opportunity to go to a date with someone else, and there’s nothing she could do to avoid it. She couldn’t even think of winning this race : she didn’t have the sport level at all! If she participated to the race, she would only embarrass herself by finishing amongst the last ones. And Annabeth didn’t like the idea of being humiliated in front of the entire school, and most importantly in front of Luke. Because, Luke was an athlete, a real one : how could he be interested in a girl that couldn’t even run? 

She was walking while she was thinking, and suddenly, she realized she had arrived, without planning it, in front of the sport complex of her neighborhood. It was an old one, that wasn’t used by a lot of person anymore, because a new one, bigger, more recent, had been build in another part of the city. Still, the complex wasn’t close, and people could access to the football field freely if they wanted to practise or have a game with friends. There was also a small swimming pool, a weights room and a boxing room inside the building, but a key was required to open it. Annabeth never really used the field before, but it was 6:30 pm, no one was here, it was almost dusk, and she had had physical education, that day, which meant she had her sneakers and her sport clothes. 

She made a few steps in direction of the field. 

No one was there, no one could see her, it was only her: so it couldn’t hurt to try, right? Just to see what she could do when running. Of course, she would realize she was ridiculous, and she wouldn’t mention it to anyone and would forget forever the idea of running this race. But at least, she would have no regret, knowing that she was definitely not good at this sport. Yes, that sounded like a good plan. She was already feeling bad, so it couldn’t get worse. 

She quickly changed into her sport clothes behind two trees, downloaded a running app on her phone, to time her, plugged her earphones – it may be less boring to run while listening to music, and checked around her one last time : no one was here. Then, she shyly walked in the field, and began to run, uncertain. Was she supposed to run faster? More slowly? How long would she been able to run if she was keeping this pace? How long did she wanted to run? Or what distance? How long was the “Luke-race”, anyway? Was she running the right way? Was she breathing the right way? Since how long did she started to run? Could she actually make it: train, and run the race, and go to the date with Luke, and become Luke’s girlfriend? No, this question was actually stupid. She knew she could never win the race; and even if the won and went to the date with Luke, she was only Annabeth : she could never seem interesting enough for Luke. She never dated anyone before: she would probably look ridiculous, and he would laugh at her, and of course she couldn’t end up being her girlfriend…. But, if she could… She tried to picture them being a couple : holding hands at school, driving together to school, going to dates during the weekend, laughing together... 

She was so busy thinking about this perfect relationship that she didn’t even notice she was out-of-breath. And that her head was dizzy. She had to stop. She wanted to stop but her legs couldn’t just stop. Or could they? She suddenly stopped running, but her legs were shaking, and the ground wasn’t stable, and suddenly she was on the ground, still trying to catch her breath, her vision blurred, and very, very confused. 

She realized she had let her phone fall a few meters behind her, but she didn’t have enough energy to get it for now. She just lay on her back, breathing heavily. Yes, it was definitely a wrong idea. She wasn’t a runner at all. There was no way she could win this race. She closed her eyes, and thought she would cry. She felt so empty, and so useless! And she actually felt worse than before running. This was ridiculous. She knew she would have end up like this : miserable, laying in the middle of the field, in the dark, unable to breathe correctly, crying. But Annabeth was a fighter, and she had liked the idea that maybe she could have impress herself, surprize herself and actually realize she could in fact run, and perhaps win the race. She had hoped that maybe, she could prove her she was wrong feeling she couldn’t do it. But she wasn’t wrong: she really couldn’t do it, and having the proof of this hurt her very badly – the mental pain was even worse than the physically pain. She was really sobbing now, and she knew she must looked ridiculous. Good thing no one was here to see her, the proud Annabeth, being so weak. 

“Uh… Annabeth, that’s it? Are you okay?”

Annabeth abruptly opened her eyes. Did she imagine this voice? Was someone actually here with her? Someone who knew her name? 

She sat up, scanning around her. It was dark, but just in front of her she could distinguish a boy with black hair who seemed worried. His face looked familiar… She blinked. 

“Are you okay?”

She tried to stand up, but her legs were too weak. The boy quickly sat next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey, take it easy, okay? Try to breathe calmly, here, follow my lead…” 

The boy helped her to catch her breath. She also stopped crying, because she was to tired for that, but she was still feeling absolutely horrible. The boy gave her a bottle of water:

“Try to drink a little, you’ll feel better…”. 

She coughed, and realized that indeed, her throat was dry. 

“And I think you need to eat something, come with me, there’s a vending machine inside…”. 

He helped her to stand up. She was still feeling weak, but a little bit better since she drank the water. The boy put his arm under her shoulder to help her to walk inside the sport complex. He made her sit down on a chair in the hall, while he was putting some money in the machine to buy her a chocolate bar. It’s only when he came back next to her, with the light on, that she finally recognized him. That’s why he had looked familiar in the dark, earlier. She knew the guy. Even though she was starting to feel better, this realization made her cry again. She had embarrassed herself in front of someone she knew. Soon, all the school would know how weak and ridiculous she was. 

The boy kneeled in front of her when he saw she was crying again, looking panicked, not knowing what to do. 

“Hey Annabeth, stop crying, it’s okay, you’re safe! Eat this, you’ll feel better!”

He gave her the chocolate bar. 

“Do you recognize me? We’re in the same Latin class, I’m…”

“Percy, Percy Jackson…” 

He looked a little bit surprised, as if he didn’t expect her to know who he was. 

“Yes, that’s it… I really think you should eat…” 

He was right. She opened the bar. The sugar and the chocolate actually felt good and comforting in her mouth. She closed her eyes. Percy let her finishing to eat in silence, and she was thankful for this. She didn’t have the strength and the courage to try to talk with him right now.

She knew him because he was in her Latin class, and she knew the name of each of her schoolmates, but she never really spoke to him before, and didn’t know him personally. In class, he was quite calm, often daydreaming, but every time the teacher was asking him a question, he could answer it correctly. She never really noticed him, though, because in this class he was pretty quiet.

After she finished eating, she opened her eyes. Percy was further from her, now, looking for something in his bag, on a table next to the vending machine. He walked toward her when he saw she had open her eyes, and he handed her an object. A phone. Her phone. 

“It was next to you, you let it down while you were running… It doesn’t seem broken!”. 

She looked at the screen after unlocking it. The timer of the running app was still running, displaying “1 hour 35 minutes”. She had no idea how long she had run. 

“You were doing pretty good when I arrived”, said Percy, “but when I left, about 15 minutes later, after realizing I had forgot the pool key, you were on the ground… Did you faint, or hurt your ankle, or anything?” 

“I… I don’t really know what happened… I was running, but suddenly I realize I was out-of-breath and…” 

“I never saw you here before, and I come almost every day. You’re not used to running, are you?” 

Curiously, Annabeth didn’t feel ashamed. Percy’s tone wasn’t accusatory, he was just stating facts, in a very soft voice. He wasn’t judging her ; he still looked a little bit worried. 

She smiled weakly. 

“Well… No, it appears that I’m not…” 

“It’s okay, maybe you tried to push yourself too much, because you didn’t know your limits”. 

He was probably right, and Annabeth was about to agree with him, but he kept talking: 

“It wouldn’t surprize me, you seem to be the kind of girl who takes things very seriously and don’t know to stop, right?”. 

He chuckled and winked at her, and it made Annabeth really angry. 

“I don’t see how it is bad”, she answered very dryly, standing up, ready to leave. 

Percy lift his hands in a sign of appeasement : 

“Hey, I didn’t mean it was a bad thing! On the contrary! You know, in class you’re always overinvested in school projects, and you always hand in perfect assignments, and it’s good, really! I’m always impressed by how much effort you put into things!” 

He stopped talking, as if he realized he spoke more than what he wanted to say initially. 

“I mean… I don’t know you, I didn’t want to assume anything about you, it’s just…” 

He put a hand in his hair, embarrassed, looking at his feet. He was clumsy, but didn’t mean anything bad. 

“It’s okay”, said Annabeth. 

He looked at her, surprised. Annabeth herself was surprised. But Percy has been nice to her, and she didn’t want to make him ill-at-ease when he only had been trying to genuinely help her. For some reason, and even though she didn’t know him, and usually didn’t trust people easily, she felt she could trust him. He was really appeasing, calm, and his eyes were full with good intentions. She sat down on the chair, and looked at the chair next to her, in a silent invitation to join her. Percy took two bottles of water in his bag, gave one to her and sat down silently, drinking, ready to listen. 

“It’s true, I never really ran before… But I didn’t want to come back directly home, tonight, and I saw this field on my way, and no one seemed to be there, and during the day I talked with my best friend about running… So I was like “why not? Maybe I could try?”… But it didn’t end very well, did it? Not an experience I’d try again!” 

“Why not? It’s normal, the first time that you run, to not know your limits… You have to try again, you can’t stop after a defeat! Maybe you were tired today, or didn’t eat enough, or eat too soon before running… You tried once today to run, and maybe it didn’t end up well today, but I think you should try again. It can only go better! And you can make sure to eat properly before, to take water with you, to prepare your mind to the idea of running… And to take it more easy, maybe? When I saw you running when I arrived, you seemed doing pretty good! If you had stop like 5 minutes before, maybe you would have like this running session!” 

Annabeth stayed silent, considering what he said. He wasn’t wrong; she didn’t like the idea of stopping after a defeat like this, for her self-esteem. 

“Maybe you’re right…”. 

He smiled. 

“I don’t know if you do a lot of sport, usually?” 

She shook her head negatively. 

“I do. I’m the captain of the swimming team of the school, and I try to come here to practice alone every time I can. I like being in the water, it makes me feel free, and good. There’s nowhere else I feel this good. Being in the water… It’s just easy. When something’s wrong at school or at home… Coming to the swimming pool is a great stress reliever. It allows me to either think of what happened, to think of something good instead, or even to not think at all, focusing only on my moves, on the water… It’s great! But the best… It’s after a swimming session. I just feel tired, but in a good way, completely relaxed. That’s one of the best feelings of the world, and if I can get it after swimming, maybe you can get it after running!”. 

He stopped talking, smiling at the thought of the sensation he was describing. He was looking at the vending-machine without really seeing it, absent-minded. Annabeth was looking at him. He really seemed passionate about the swimming, and to be honest, it was making Annabeth want to feel that feeling too.

“Yeah, I’ll try again”. 

He quickly turned his head in her direction, his eyes sparkling, looking excited : 

“Really?” 

Annabeth smiled. 

“Really. You convinced me!”

Percy looked really proud. 

“I’m glad!”

He looked at his watch 

“Outch, almost 8 pm, I’d better go home before my mother get worried… Do you live far from here?”

It turned out that Percy was living only 5 minutes away from Annabeth. He offered to walk back with her, to make sure she was okay. Annabeth was feeling better than earlier, but she was glad he offered : it was safer. They didn’t talk much on their way to Annabeth, both tired. 

“Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow”, said Annabeth when they reached her street. 

Percy looked confused. 

“I will?” 

“We have a Latin class, tomorrow!”

“Oh right! Did we have homework by the way?” 

Annabeth rolled her eyes : 

“It’s a little bit late to think about this, don’t you think? But no, we didn’t”. 

“Perfect! See you tomorrow, then!”. 

She smiled. 

“See you tomorrow”. 

She went back straight to her room, after telling her father she was okay and was just doing a little sport. Then she took a shower, eat, and went to bed, quickly. She felt exhausted, but… in a pretty good way. She ignored Piper’s messages. She didn’t want to think about the “Luke run” for now. She just wanted to think about nothing, and enjoy this sensation. She was feeling really relaxed, and slowly felt asleep, faster and earlier than usually, a smile on her lips. Really, this day has been… surprising.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After their meeting at the sport complex, Annabeth and Percy see each other at school for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is chapter 2! I didn't know if a lot of people would read this story, and I'm surprised that I received some kudos and comments on the first chapter! Thanks a lot, it gave me motivation to write this second chapter pretty quickly!
> 
> I hope you'll like it!

When Annabeth woke up the next morning, and tried to move, she winced in pain. Her muscles were sore, as she didn’t stretch after her running session. However, she noticed that she didn’t sleep that well since a long time. Maybe doing sport had its perks, after all! 

She was in a good mood, fully rested. She got ready quickly, and left for school. On her way, she tried to think about what she would say to Piper. She knew she didn’t act properly, the day before, and she ignored Piper’s messages during the evening. 

Piper was at her locker, with Jason. Annabeth shyly walked in their direction. 

“Hi…” 

Piper looked at her, and seemed to hesitate one minute about how she would act. Then she simply smiled and pretended nothing happened the day before. 

“Hi Annabeth! How are you today?”

Annabeth smiled too, relieved.

“I’m great, what about you?” 

After their math class, Piper had an art class when Annabeth had a Latin lesson. When she entered the classroom, she noticed that Percy was already there. He smiled and waved at her. She nodded in his direction and waved too. 

“You know Percy Jackson?” asked someone behind her. 

It was Hazel; she wasn’t her best friend, but she was a friend of Jason, and she was Annabeth closest friend in this class, and they usually sat together and worked together on assignments. 

“Oh, no!”

“Why did he wave at you, then?” suspiciously asked Hazel. 

“I don’t know”, Annabeth shrugged. “To be polite, I guess!”. 

“But he never did that be…” 

Fortunately, the teacher, Mr Brunner, came in and asked them to sit down and to be quiet. The class started, and Hazel didn’t ask further questions, to Annabeth’s relief. She didn’t want to talk about what happened with Percy the day before to anyone; not even to Piper. She didn’t even know why, but she felt as if she needed to “protect” it. It was something that happened between the two of them, and no one else needed to know. Also, even though she promised Percy she would try running again, she didn’t want to tell Piper and Jason: she still wasn’t sure to participate to the “Luke race”, because she wasn’t picturing her being good enough two months later to be a serious contestant, and she didn’t want to be ridiculous in front of the entire school. 

Annabeth didn’t like failure, and she didn’t like when others were seeing her failures. So, she decided to keep training alone – or with Percy – without any pressure. This way, if she felt ready and confident alone to run the race, then she would. But if she felt that she wasn’t good enough – and that was the most likely option – then she could keep ignoring the race, and no one would know that her training didn’t work. Well, no one except Percy, but, Annabeth didn’t know why, but it didn’t bother her too much that Percy could witness this failure. Maybe it was because he wasn’t a close friend of her – they barely knew each other – or maybe it was because he already saw her at her worse, and she had nothing to lose left after what happened the day before. 

However, she realized she didn’t discuss something really important with Percy the day before. And after the boy’s greeting when she had entered the room, they didn’t seem on the same wavelength : she wanted to keep this outside the school, so that no one could ask questions. That meant she couldn’t speak to Percy at school. She hoped he wouldn’t mind, but he had seemed to be someone comprehensive. She had to talk to him about it, the next time they would be alone. She was relieved to see that at the end of the class, Percy had left quickly; she didn’t want to have to talk with him in school, and she had been afraid that he’d wait for her at the end of the class. This being said, she felt a little bit disappointed, without knowing why. She would have like the idea of him waiting for her, even though she couldn’t speak with him here. Hazel already had left, and she was alone in the room. She finally stood up to go out as well. 

“How are you doing?” 

She jumped, surprized. Percy was leaning on the wall next to the door of the classroom. He had wait for her! She quickly scanned the corridor : no one she knew was there. She allowed herself to smile. 

“Hi! My muscles are just a little sore, but I haven’t slept that good since a long time!”

“I’m glad to hear that”, Percy grinned, “You see, that’s part of what I what describing to you yesterday. The feeling after a sport session! So, you didn’t change your mind? You still want to give it a try?”

“Actually, yes! You were right, yesterday. Thank you, by the way!” 

“No problem!” 

He smiled, and she smiled, and they stared at each other for a minute, without it being awkward or anything. Annabeth hadn’t noticed it the day before, because of the dark, but Percy had very blue piercing eyes. 

“Well” he finally said, “Let me know how it’d go, next time you try!” 

He began to walk away. 

“Percy!” Annabeth suddenly called, without even knowing why. 

He turned away. 

“Yes?” 

“Uh…. Do you have any advice, for the next time I run?”. 

“Oh, try to go easy, don’t forget that the goal is to have fun. Don’t run more than 30 minutes. Between 15 and 30 minutes seems good, for a beginner. Bring water with you. Do some stretching before and after. And try to control your breath!” 

“Thank you! I’ll do that!” 

He nodded at her and left. And Annabeth suddenly realized she: a) forgot to ask him to leave this “running thing” outside the school, as she initially had planned to do; she even had been the one to ask him for advice! And b) that they didn’t plan to meet at the field to run together. That was stupid, because they never said they would run together. But after what happened the day before, how concerned Percy had looked, and how he insisted for her to try running again, she kind of had expected that he would have been there when she would try it again. Which was kind of a paradox, because initially she didn’t want anyone to know that she was trying to run, because she was feeling ridiculous because of her inexperience. So why would she want Percy to be here and witness this? It didn’t make any sense. 

She met Piper at the cafeteria, while Jason was at a practise with the football team. After a few minutes, her best friend decided to bring up the “Luke race” again. 

“Listen, Annabeth, I understood that you didn’t want to participate to this run, but I think that you should think about it. Besides, Jason told be that the fact that a race would be organized will only be announced in two weeks. So, if you start training now… You’d be 15 days ahead the other contestants…” 

“I don’t think it’d be enough, though. I’m thinking about all the cheerleaders that are crazy about Luke and in a much better shape than I am, that would fight to win the race. I can’t compete against them!” 

“This is so cliché… The captain of the football team, dating a cheerleader? Besides, if Luke was interested in one of them, he would already have asked her out : he sees them constantly! But he doesn’t know you much; if you’d win this race, he would have the perfect opportunity to notice how special you are!” 

“I know” Annabeth sighed. “But still… Listen, I’m sorry for yesterday, I shouldn’t have ignored you and your messages. It’s just… the all “run” thing, I don’t like it. I know I can’t compete against athletes like them, and I feel so powerless, having to watch Luke have a date with someone else without being able to do anything else…”. 

“Well… There’s actually a way for you to avoid taking the risk that the winner of this race becomes Luke’s girlfriend… Without you participating to the race!” 

“Really?” 

“The prize isn’t a date ; it’s just Luke buying a ticket for the boy and the girl who are winning the race. And then, the winners can spend the day with him if they want… But they don’t have to, and they can go with him just in a friendly way… If Jason or I are winning this race, we will make sure to hang out with him at the festival, this way, if only Jason wins and not I, we will still make sure that Luke isn’t alone with the girl who won. And you could come with us! It would almost be a double date!”

Annabeth laughed. 

“You really think that one of you is going to win, uh?” 

The confidence of Piper always impressed Annabeth. Of course, Piper was quite athletic. She was doing a lot of sport, especially dance, and was planning to join the cheerleaders team the next year. And Jason was a fast runner, who practised a lot with the football team, but it didn’t mean that any of them would win! There would probably be a lot of contestants, all very well trained! 

Piper just shrugged. 

“Well, if you don’t believe our chances of success, there’s also one thing you could to, yourself, to make sure that Luke’s “date” with the winner is purely platonic…” 

“What, now?” 

“Ask him out before the race! If you begin to date before the race, you’re sure that the festival date with the winner won’t be romantic at all, if he’s already involved with you!” 

“ I wish I could do that…” 

“Then do it! Remember, that what I did with Jason; if I had wait for him to ask me out, we wouldn’t be in a relationship now!” 

“Yeah, and I’m glad you did, baby!” suddenly said Jason.

Annabeth didn’t hear nor see him coming, but it was often like that with Jason. He could sometimes come out of nowhere, and joining the conversation as if he was there since the beginning. She was getting used to this. She actually liked Jason, he was a nice guy even though she never had a lot to tell him. She didn’t mind him spending so much time with Piper and her. 

“The practise is already over?” she asked him. 

“Yeah, Luke had an appointment with the director to organize the race. He had such a great idea, it will be a fun way to raise the money we need! And it’s more original than just selling cookies!”. 

Annabeth nodded. 

“Yes, that’s a clever idea!” 

Of course, Luke had great ideas. Annabeth never doubted that. He was definitely the best! 

She went back home pretty early, and studied for a while. Around 6 pm, she wondered whether she should go running. Her muscles were still sore, but she was quite impatient to try again. Maybe, if she used Percy’s advice, it would be okay? She could only run 15 minutes, just to try. And do a lot of stretching. She got ready quickly, and left to go to the field. It was only 10 minutes away from her place, and the weather was good for the month of March. When she arrived at the sport complex, she looked carefully at the building, even tried to open the door, but there was no light, and it was close. Percy wasn’t there. Annabeth didn’t know if she was disappointed, or why she was disappointed. After all, the day before, she made sure no one was there, and now she wanted an audience? Ridiculous. It was better for her to be alone, especially if it was just to try to slowly run 15 minutes. She warmed up a little – something she didn’t do the day before, but should have! – and then launched her running app, and put her earphones on. 

This time, she stayed focus on how she was running, paying attention to her breath, and the way her feet were touching the ground. However, she was more aware of the pain in her legs, of her being out of breath, and she was under the impression that it was lasting forever, and that yet she wasn’t running a lot. She felt really slow. But she got bored pretty quickly. She looked at the timer. Only 8 minutes had left? And she barely ran 1 kilometer! She sighed. She didn’t know how long the race would be, but probably more than that. 

The seconds were passing, slowly, and it was more and more difficult to keep going. Annabeth couldn’t understand why; even though she didn’t know how long she ran the day before, because she didn’t stop her timer right after she stopped running, and even though it ended up with her feeling bad, at least the process of running didn’t seem so long and so boring! She was panting, more and more. She looked at the timer, again. 12 minutes. Still 3 minutes to go. Honestly, she wasn’t sure she could do it. The performance would be bad anyway, so why not just stop now? No one would know. She could lie to Percy and tell him she ran 15 minutes, he wouldn’t check, and, she thought quite bitterly, he wasn’t here to see it anyway. 

But Annabeth was a very stubborn girl. When she was doing something, she liked doing it entirely. She liked being 100% of something. And she was determined. Her body may want to stop, but her mind wanted to keep going, and her mind was stronger than her body. And seriously? Only 2 more minutes to go? Of course she could do it, it wasn’t that much. She tried to motivate herself, thinking “go Annabeth, go, you can do it, go, go, go!” repeatedly. Only one minute to go… Thirty seconds... Fifteen seconds, it was almost over, it was the moment to do one last effort, and to run the fastest that she could… And that’s how she ended, after 10 seconds of sprint that left her panting. But, surprisingly… It felt good. 

She felt proud of herself, even though her pace hadn’t been great, even though she didn’t even run 2 kilometers, at least, she finished what she decided to do. She drank some water, and did some stretching. Then, she just lay on the ground, watching the sky. It was the sunset, and it was very calm. She felt more relaxed than ever, and simply smiled. She stayed like this for a long time, maybe even longer than the time she spent running, but it was okay. When she finally stood up, it was dark, and it was 7:15 pm. It was around that time that the day before, Percy had arrived. Maybe he would come, and she could tell him that she ran 15 minutes? She was sure that the boy would be happy for her, even though 15 minutes weren’t a lot. She was sure that Percy would be supportive. After her effort, she started to be a little cold, though. She put a jacket above her sweater, and waited a few minutes, sitting against the door of the building. 7:20. 7:25. Percy wasn’t coming. At 7:30, Annabeth realized she was cold, hungry, and that she needed a shower. Percy would probably not arrive after 7:35. Then, she knew nothing about his habits. She knew nothing about him! It was stupid to wait for him. So she decided to go back home. Even though she couldn’t share it with Percy (or with Piper, who didn’t even know she was running!) she was still pretty proud of having completed her session. It was only a start, it had been long, boring, and painful, but eventually, she finished it. And that was very satisfying. Percy had been right when he had advised her to try again, and Annabeth was glad he had been there the day before. 

When she went to bed, tired, and left her thoughts go in different directions before falling asleep, she didn’t even notice that instead of thinking about Luke, like she always did before sleeping, she was thinking about what Percy had told her the day before, and how he smiled at her when she told him she would try running again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a little bit shorter than the first one, but I already started to write the third chapter, so I think I'll post it soon, probably today or tomorrow!
> 
> Also, you probably noticed some grammar, conjugaison or vocabulary mistakes... I'm sorry, but English isn't my native language (I'm French), and even though I already write short stories in English, I never wrote a fanfiction that was more than 5000 words in English! I hope those mistakes don't bother you too much when you're reading!! 
> 
> (Also, I'll probably write a French version of this story as well, if any of you are French speakers!)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason tells Annabeth something about Percy that surprizes her ; besides, she decides to ignore Percy at school, to make sure that her friends don't discover that she started running.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the third chapter!  
> I hope you'll like it!   
> Thank you again for your comments on the previous chapters!

The next day, Annabeth muscles weren’t as sore as the day before. The stretching she did seemed efficient! When she prepared her bag to go to school, she thought it was bad that she didn’t have any Latin class that day: even though she didn’t want to talk to Percy at school too much, she couldn’t wait to share her result from the day before with him. 

However, she didn’t see him at all during all the morning, even though she was looking for him. 

“Who are you looking for? Luke? You know he doesn’t usually have class on this part of the school, on Fridays!”. 

“Yeah, I know… By the way, at what time is the game tomorrow?” 

The distraction worked, as Piper began to talk about the team their school would be facing the next day. Jason met them at the cafeteria, and they were still talking about the next game, when Annabeth heard someone calling her joyfully. 

“Hey Annabeth! How are you doing? Did you try…” 

Oh, no. Well, of course she had wanted to talk to Percy all day, but not like this, not in front of Jason and Piper! Piper was already looking at her, full of questions. Annabeth quickly stood up, and grabbed Percy by the arm to drag him away from her friends before he talked about the run. 

“I’m sorry Percy I don’t have the time to talk to you right now. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

Percy looked deeply confused. 

“But, I… Why are you…?” 

“I’ll see you later”, insisted Annabeth, going back to her table. 

Percy just stood there, still confused, and Annabeth felt quite guilty leaving him like this in the middle of the cafeteria, when he had done nothing wrong. But Piper and Jason were really close, and she didn’t want them to hear about the running thing. 

“Who is this guy? What did he want?” asked Piper. “I think I never saw him before…” 

“That’s Percy, the captain of the swimming team” answered Jason before Annabeth could talk. 

“We’re in the same Latin class, he had a question for one of our assignment…” 

“You have to work with him? Good luck with that” Jason said, shaking his head as if he wasn’t approving.

Annabeth looked at him, taken aback by what Jason, who basically liked everybody, just said. 

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I don’t know him personally, but I know he and Luke had some disagreement, lately… This Percy guy hasn’t been very nice to Luke! This being said, I don’t know what happened exactly… Be careful with him!” 

“That’s too bad, he seemed to be a nice guy”, Piper commented. 

Annabeth didn’t add anything. She was quite surprised by what Jason said, because, even though she didn’t know Percy very well, he seemed to be very supportive, and caring, and kind, and she wasn’t picturing him being mean to Luke. Jason shrugged.

“Yeah, he was probably jealous of him or something like that. He wouldn’t be the first! That’s the cost of popularity, for Luke. Not everyone can like him!” 

“Yes, jealousy is a real calamity! Do you remember the time when Reyna was pissed at me when I started dating you?”

“Come on, Reyna isn’t mean!”

“Yes, I know, I forgave her, but still, she tried to make us break up!” 

As Jason and Piper began talking about this memory, Annabeth let her mind wander, happy that her friends changed the conversation topic. She was really surprised by what Jason told her about Percy, but she didn’t know the guy very much, and Luke was so great that it wasn’t impossible that Percy could be jealous of him. Annabeth could understand why Percy could be jealous: Luke was handsome, popular, kind, everybody – students, teachers… - liked him, he had good grades (from what Annabeth heard), he was responsible, he was a great football player… Yes, it wasn’t a surprise that some guys were jealous of him! Annabeth was still a little bit disappointed that Percy was this kind of person, but that was okay, it wasn’t as if he was one of her friends anyway… 

This discussion made her forgot how rude she had been with Percy during the lunch period and how confused he had looked after she left him in the middle of the cafeteria. After her class, she stayed at school because she had her math club. When she got out, she was feeling pretty tired, and given the fact that she went running two days on her row, she decided it would probably better if she took a day off. Piper texted her to meet her outside of the locker room of the gym of the school. She was waiting for Jason to get out. 

“I was thinking that maybe you could come at my place, before the game, tomorrow! We could watch the TV and getting ready together!” 

Annabeth smiled. They often did this, meeting before a game, and it was always fun. 

“Sure! At what time can I come? And do you want me to bring some… ”

The locker room opened, and Luke got out, with a few other guys from the team. Annabeth stopped talking when the captain walked in their direction.

“Hello, girls! Piper, Jason was still showering, he should be there soon!” 

“Great, thanks Luke!”   
The door opened again, and other students came out, but this time, they weren’t from the football team. Another team probably had a practice at the same time. 

“Hey, Captain, you’re coming?” asked one of Luke’s teammate. 

“I’m coming!” Luke answered. He looked at Piper and Annabeth with a smile. “Sorry I have to go! I guess I’ll see you tomorrow for the game!”

“Good… Good luck for the game”, Annabeth said. 

Luke smiled.

“Thanks Annabeth! See you!” 

He went to join his friends, and Annabeth closed her eyes, smiling. 

“He talked to me, to me specifically! He told me “Thank you Annabeth!”” 

“Well, yes, good thing he knows your name and your face, you’re at all his games and you’re always hanging out with Jason! You knew that he knew you already!” smiled Piper.

“Yes, I know… But still, hearing him saying my name… It’s great!”. 

Jason finally met them. Annabeth noticed that Percy was also in front of the gym; he probably came out while she was talking to Luke. She looked at him, but he didn’t seem to notice her, lost in his thoughts. 

“Luke prepared a great strategy”, Jason was enthusiastically explaining. “I can’t wait to be tomorrow, I’m sure we’ll beat them!”. 

Indeed, the day after, Jason’s team won, quite easily. They celebrated in front of the football field, singing their school’s anthem, happy. After the game, all the boys went at Travis’ (one of the team members) for an after game party. 

“You wanna come?” Jason asked Piper and Annabeth.

“Sorry, I have to get home early, we have a family dinner tomorrow” Piper said. 

“Well if Piper isn’t coming, I won’t either, it’d be weird… Besides I have some work to do” Annabeth answered.

Jason shrugged. 

“As you want! I’ll see you both on Monday I guess!”

He kissed Piper and waved at Annabeth. 

“Well, I’ll probably better get going home as well” Piper said. “Have a nice weekend!” 

Annabeth looked at her watch. 6 pm. She wasn’t feeling tired, this day, and having seen people doing sport got her on the mood to do some physical exercise as well, so she decided to go home, get her sport clothes, and go for a run. 

Once again, she was alone when she arrived at the sport complex, but she noticed that the light of the building was on. Percy was probably inside. She entered in the hall, and called him, but she didn’t get any answer. Then, if Percy was busy swimming, he couldn’t hear her. So she decided to start her running session, and to talk to Percy later. 

She tried to run for 20 minutes, this time. She decided to go easy, easier as two days ago, because it had been difficult for her to finish then. She found a pace without even noticing it. She was halfway through the timer she set when she started to get more and more out of breath. She winced. If she could barely run for 10 minutes, she would never been able to do the “Luke race”! She focused on her breath, and slowed down a little, still running. She had a strong mind, she could finish the twenty minutes! “Go Annabeth, go, go, go”, she was thinking to herself. “Think about Luke!”. Luke seemed to be a strong motivation, because it made her keep going. 19:45, 19:46, and Annabeth started to sprint, to finish on a positive note. 19:59 and… 20 minutes! Annabeth stopped the timer, and, comparing her results to her run from two days ago, she noticed she did a better performance than the last time. She smiled, proud of herself. It had been hard, but she made it! 

She slowly caught her breath, drank some water, and did some stretching exercises. She looked at the building; the light was still on, Percy was still inside. She felt relaxed, and good, and decided to lay down in the grass for a few minutes, waiting for Percy. When she started to get cold, she put her coat on, got closer to the door of the building, and scrolled on her phone, leaning on the door. He finally got out, his hair wet, his sport bag on of his shoulder, a thin smile on his lips, looking relaxed. 

“Hey!” 

When he noticed Annabeth, his face got tense. 

“I ran yesterday, and today as well, and I’m actually pretty proud of me! Well, my times aren’t great, of course, but I did better between today and yesterday, so if I keep improving, I think I’m gonna start liking running a lot, and…” 

Annabeth stopped talking when she noticed that Percy didn’t seem to celebrate with her. His expression was still closed, defensive. 

“Hey are you okay? How was your swimming session?” 

“Good, thank you. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m tired, I’d like to go back home”. 

Annabeth wasn’t understanding Percy’s behaviour. Why was he acting so distant? Was he angry? 

“Okay… Have a good evening…” 

He almost ignored her, locked the door and began to walk away quickly, leaving Annabeth very confused. What was wrong with him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I already wrote the fourth chapter, and I really like it, because there are very important (good)Percabeth moments! But firstly I needed to go through those misunderstandings between the two of them... 
> 
> I'll post it tomorrow after I worked on the fifth chapter a little bit more!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After some misunderstandings, Annabeth and Percy finally clarify the situation.   
> Also, Annabeth meets Percy's friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is chapter 4! It's a chapter I like a lot, because it's full of Percabeth moments! 
> 
> I think that this story will be a little longer than what I initially planned, but that's fine because surprisingly I write pretty quickly, these days! I still have some school work, so I can't write as much as I wish I could, but I still manage to get some hours free to work on this story!   
> Also, don't be afraid, I know where I'm going so there will be an end! I won't leave this work unfinished! 
> 
> Also, thanks again for the comments and kudos on the previous chapters! It really gives me motivation to keep working a lot on this story!
> 
> I hope you'll like this chapter as much as I liked writing it!

On the Sunday, Annabeth played basketball with her stepbrothers. She decided it was enough sport for the day, and didn’t go running. She was still confused about Percy’s behaviour from the day before. It got clearer when she arrived at school the next day, and saw the headline of the school’s newspaper: “VICTORY FOR THE FOOTBALL TEAM, LOSS FOR THE SWIMMING TEAM: OUR HIGH SCHOOL IS DEFINITELY NOT AN AQUATIC SCHOOL”. 

So Percy team’s lost their competition on the Saturday. Annabeth didn’t even know he has a competition; it apparently took place just before the football game. She remembered what Jason said : Percy wasn’t a fan of Luke, so losing his competition while Luke was winning his game probably pissed him off. But it wasn’t a reason to be angry at Annabeth? 

But as she was at her locker with Piper and Jason, and saw Percy on the corridor, looking at her, it stroke her : of course, Percy saw her hanging out with Jason, and associated her with the football team. But it wasn’t Annabeth’s fault if Percy lost his competition! She decided to make it clear with him the next time she could see him alone. 

The chance to have this conversation happened on the evening, as Annabeth was tying her shoelaces before starting running, right when Percy arrived at the sport complex. 

“Percy!” 

She stood up and walked in his direction. 

“I’m gonna run for 20 minutes again, like last time. It’s not a lot, but this way I can compare it to my last result and measure my improvement!”. 

“Yes, sounds like a good idea” coldly answered Percy.

“Thanks again for the advice, by the way. It helped me a lot last week!” 

Percy shrugged, looking indifferent.

“Good for you”. 

His behavior was beginning to annoy Annabeth. As Percy kept walking towards the door, she burst out: 

“What is wrong with you, Percy Jackson?” 

He turned around. 

“I’m sorry?” 

“I said : what is wrong with you? I saw you lost your swimming competition last Saturday, but it’s not because of me, it’s not a reason to be angry at him! Are you jealous of Luke or something?”

Percy’s face, which was a little bit surprised by Annabeth’s criticisms first, radically changed when she mentioned Luke. 

“I don’t care about Luke! Luke can do what he wants, I’m sick of people comparing me to Luke! And l’m sorry Annabeth, but the real question here is what is wrong with YOU?”, Percy yelled.

It was weird to see Percy, who was usually always calm, being so angry. 

“Am I not good enough for your football friends? That’s why you ignore me and don’t talk to me in front of them? I’m not good enough for you?” 

“But… What…. What are you talking about?” 

“I noticed that at school, you only talked to me when you were alone. Every time you’re with your friends from the football team, you pretend you don’t know me! So what, football is better than swimming?”

So Percy was really jealous about the football team? Jason was right? 

“Swimming isn’t “popular” enough for you?” Percy added, but this time, it was too much for Annabeth. She wasn’t going let him think that she was a superficial girl who only cared about popularity! 

“I don’t care about what sport Jason is playing! He’s my best friend’s boyfriend, and he’s nice, so I’m sorry, but I like spending time with him! And I don’t care that you’re a swimmer, or a dancer, or a fencer or anything! Last time, I had a very bad first running session, and I was about to give up running, and you were there, and helped me, gave me water and food, gave me advices, encouraged me to keep going. You acted very nicely with me. And just because one of my friend is on the football team, that won its last game when you lost your last competition, you start to hate me?”

Percy’s expression softened. He looked kind of sad, now.

“Come on Annabeth, I don’t hate you! I’m just disappointed that you seem to think I don’t deserve to be your friend”. 

Annabeth was shocked. How could Percy think that? 

“What? But…”. 

Percy stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground. 

“I guess I should have see it coming… I mean, a brilliant, successful girl like you…” 

“But Percy, no, it’s not…” 

Percy seemed genuinely sad, now, and it broke Annabeth’s heart. 

“Anyway, good luck for your running session. Don’t forget to drink some water!”. 

He opened the door of the building. Annabeth wanted to say something, but didn’t have the words. So she decided to run instead. She was pretty sad because Percy has looked sad. She also was angry, because at the beginning Percy made her angry, when he implied that she only cared about the popularity of the football players. She was disappointed, that Percy thought she didn’t want to be his friend because she thought he wasn’t good enough. Clearly, they had a miscommunication problem. 

Then she remembered how she rejected him at the cafeteria when he tried to talk to her. In the end, she never told Percy she didn’t want her friends to know about her running. It wasn’t surprising that Percy misread her behaviour towards him! She needed to explain it to him. She had been very selfish, and she didn’t even think about how Percy could feel or interpret her actions. 

Running her anger out as she did made her do a good performance. But most importantly, she was feeling better after the run : calmer, relaxed, no more angry or sad. Just tired. And with a clearer mind. She only ran for twenty minutes, and after that waited ten more minutes, but Percy was probably going to stay in the pool for at least an hour. Annabeth was tired and cold, and she decided to go home without waiting for him. She could talk to him the next day.   
However, the next day, they had a Latin class. And Annabeth didn’t want Percy to think she was ignoring him. The last day, even though they didn’t solve all their issues, they made the situation between them better, therefore Annabeth didn’t want to waste this improvement. On the other hand, she still didn’t want to talk about the run to her friends, and if she talked to them about Percy, she would need to tell them about the running. She didn’t know what to do. 

Fortunately, Percy wasn’t here when she came into the classroom. He arrived a few minutes late. The teacher, Mr Brunner, liked him, so he let him attend to the class, even though he was late. 

“However, Percy, it’s not the first time that you arrive late. Because of that, you will have a small punishment.”

Percy winced. Annabeth found that adorable, without knowing why. One week ago, she never had paid attention to the boy! 

“I was planning to give all of you oral presentations to do over the next week about Greek and Roman mythology. As you arrived late, you will be the first to do the presentation, next week. You will have less time than the other student to prepare.”

“Okay… I guess I deserve it”, answered Percy. 

“Your presentation will be about gods in Greek and roman mythology. But the presentations must be done in pairs. Does anyone want to work with Percy on this topic?” Mr Brunner asked to the class. 

Percy looked at his classmates, anxiously. No one raised their hands. 

“Come on, you will all have to do a presentation, one day or another… If no one volunteers, I’ll have to randomly assign someone…” 

“It won’t be necessary”

Everyone looked at Annabeth, and she realized that it was because she was the one who just spoke. 

“I’m sorry?” asked Mr Brunner. 

“You don’t have to assign someone. I’ll work with Percy!”

Percy looked at her, very surprised and confused at the same time. He really looked adorable. 

“Very good, Annabeth, I’m sure both of you will do a great work! Now go to sit, Percy!”. 

The class began, but Annabeth wasn’t paying attention. Her heart was beating faster than usually, and the only thing she could think of what “Why?”. What did she volunteer to work with Percy? Why? She didn’t even think about it before volunteering, she just did it spontaneously… 

Hazel seemed as surprised as she was. 

“Why did you do that? We could have work together on another presentation! You told me you didn’t know Percy!” 

Annabeth shrugged. 

“I don’t know, the topic was interesting! And at least, I’ll do the presentation quickly!”

“Hazel, you have a question?” asked the teacher. 

“No, sorry” answered the young girl, deciding to stay quiet for the rest of the class. 

At the end of the class, even though Annabeth took a lot of time to put her books in her bag, Percy was of course waiting for her in the corridor. He seemed uncertain about what to say, and about why Annabeth did volunteer to work with him. 

“Uh… So… I guess we’ll have to work together?” he started. 

Annabeth raised an eyebrow.

“Is it going to be a problem?” 

“No, no, of course not!” quickly answered Percy. “I’m just… surprised you volunteered, that’s all. But glad! I’m glad you did! I look forward working with you”, he confessed, looking at her feet. 

Annabeth felt she was blushing. Percy himself was embarrassed. 

“I mean… You always have good grades, and you seem to work pretty efficiently, so… Yeah, it will be a good… learning experience!” 

“Great! I find the topic really interesting. Maybe we can do some researches on our own and meet tomorrow afternoon at the library to share what we found?”

“Sounds great!” 

“Okay then… I’ll guess I’ll see you tonight?” 

“Oh no, sorry, I have a swimming practice at the school pool, tonight, with the team. My practices are on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“Oh so that’s why you weren’t at the sport complex last Thursday!” 

“You looked for me?” Percy asked, astonished. 

“Well, yes, I would have like having my personal trainer with me when I tried running again after the catastrophe of the day before” Annabeth joked.

“Oh, I… I didn’t know… I actually thought you’d like to be alone… As you didn’t see very happy that I saw you last Wednesday… I thought you’d prefer to train alone… I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I had my practice, by the way! I didn’t think you would look for me! I…” Percy stuttered. 

Annabeth chuckled. 

“That’s okay Percy, I’m joking! But for your information, I’m actually glad you saw me, that day. I… Usually, I don’t like when people see me weak, failing at something. You know, as everybody, I like to appear as someone perfect… But of course, I’m not good at running, so I wanted to try it alone so that no one could see me failing at it…” 

“Oh” Percy said. “It… It makes sense, I guess. But your friends won’t judge you for failing, you know! The important is to try!” 

“Yes, I know but… It’s easier to say! Besides, my best friend, Piper, she’s good at sport, when I’m good at school and… She always thinks that I’m a successful person and… I guess I kind of didn’t want to disappoint her? Or to make her see a part of me that’s not as good as she thinks I am?”

“I see what you mean, but I’m sure that she knows that you’re not perfect. No one is perfect Annabeth! Failing at something is… human. Plus you didn’t really fail. You just tried running!” 

“Yes, and I’m glad you advised me to keep trying… Because the more I run, the easier it seems to be! Well of course I only ran four times, and it’s not perfect, but… The feeling after a sport session you were talking about? You were right, it’s one of the best in the world! So, that’s why I’m happy you were there to motivate me, last week, after my first bad session. Because it was worth trying again! And I’d like to keep running because… Even though it’s not always easy – really, I find it pretty boring! – I enjoy it.”

“That’s the magic of sport!” Percy smiled gently. “I’m happy you found it!” 

“And you know, about the last day, at the cafeteria? And all those times I ignored you, at school? When I was with my friends? It wasn’t because of you. It was because of me!”

Percy frowned. 

“What do you mean?”

“I… I don’t want them to know I start running, because… I like the idea that it’s something that belong to me, and as they are good at sport, and I’m not… I’d like to improve myself before sharing it with them. And if they saw me talking to you… I would have had to explain them what happened at the sport complex. And for some reason… I didn’t want to share it with them. Not now.”

“Oh” Percy said again, not knowing what to say. “Okay, yes, I understand… But you could have told it to me at the sport complex, I’d have understood!”

“I know, I’m sorry! So… we’re good?” 

Percy smiled, and offered his hand for Annabeth to shake it. 

“We’re good!”

Annabeth smiled too. 

“So… Would you mind helping me to improve at running?” she asked hesitantly. 

She wanted this, since the first day Percy helped her, but she didn’t really dare asking him directly, hoping he would understand. But clearly, they needed to communicate more. Percy looked surprised.

“Well, I like running but I’m not a great runner myself… But yes, I guess I could give you some advices and follow your results, and help you to get motivated?” 

“Thanks, coach!” Annabeth grinned. 

She felt relieved that he agreed to help her, in a “official” way. 

“And now that we’re working together for that Latin presentation… If my friends see me talking to you, that’s fine, I have a good reason to do so!”

“And I won’t mention the running in front of them”, Percy promised. “But, Annabeth, I still have one question…”

He seemed hesitant. 

“Yes?” she encouraged him.

“You don’t want to share your new running project with your closest friends… But you trust me enough to share it with me? Even though we don’t know each other? Why?”.

Annabeth blushed and looked away, embarrassed. 

“Well, to be honest, I don’t really know myself… I guess it’s just the way you helped me and talked to me, last week, after my bad running experience… You found the right words, and you were nice, and… I don’t know, I just feel that it will be easier if I share this with you. As, without wanting it, you started this with me… It just seems right to keep going that way, you know?”

Percy seemed happy with her answer, and he nodded. 

“Good. Well, I’m glad to share this with you! I really like sport, well swimming in particular, but sport in general is good. And…” 

“Oh Percy! There you are!”

Two boys were walking in their direction. Annabeth already saw them before, one of them, a tall guy, was in her English class. 

“Hi guys! Annabeth, here are Frank and Leo, my friends. Guys, this is Annabeth. She’s in my Latin class, we have an oral presentation to prepare together!”.

“Oh, so you know Hazel, right?” asked Leo. 

Percy rolled his eyes. 

“Come on Leo, don’t bother Annabeth with this!” 

“Yes, she’s one of my friend, why?” 

Leo opened his eyes wide. 

“Really? You mean, you talk to her, you know what she likes… stuffs like that?”

“Yes, she’s my friend, why?” 

“That’s great! That’s great!” Leo repeated. 

Annabeth looked at Percy, confused. Percy shrugged. 

“It’s just that Leo has a huge crush on Hazel. There’re on the same Spanish class, and Leo finds her amazing, but he never dared to ask her out…” 

“Oh, well… You know, Hazel is really nice. You have nothing to lose asking her for a date! She won’t bite you”

“Easier said than done!” Leo muttered. 

Annabeth thought about Luke. Indeed, it was easy to give advices she didn’t put in practise herself! 

“I know… 

“Well, maybe we could go to the cafeteria, now? I’m starving!” Percy said, when he saw that no one else was speaking. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the library, Annabeth?” 

“Yes, see you there! And it was nice meeting you, guys!”

Frank nodded in her direction. He seemed to be very shy. 

“See you later, Annabeth! Especially if Hazel is with you…” Leo joked. 

“Stop bothering Annabeth with that!” Percy said, but he was laughing. 

Leo’s crush on Hazel seemed to be a recurrent joke among them. Percy’s friends were nice. It probably meant that Percy himself was nice, right? She had no doubt that he was a kind person. But she couldn’t help wondering why he didn’t like Luke. It was weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, now you see why this chapter is important and why I like it a lot!
> 
> I almost finished writing the next chapter, so I think I'll post it tomorrow! Little spoilers about it : Percy and his friends will meet Annabeth's friends, and Percy and Annabeth will work together on their Latin presentation!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annabeth's friends meet Percy and his friends. Annabeth and Percy have their first study session at the library, preparing their oral presentation. Then, Annabeth's running training really begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is (finally) the chapter 5. I'm sorry it took longer than what I expected to be posted! I wrote almost all of it on Saturday, but then couldn't find the time to finish it until tonight!
> 
> But it's a pretty long chapter, with a lot of cute scenes between Percy and Annabeth, so I hope you'll enjoy it!
> 
> Thank you for your comments and your kudos, I appreciate your support and it makes me keep writing!!

Annabeth hesitated a little, but knowing that Percy wasn’t going to the sport complex that day, she decided to stay at home, and to do some research for their Latin presentation instead. She was looking forward working with Percy, the next day, even though she knew Percy wasn’t a perfect student : he was often distracted in class, arriving late, not very organized. 

She was really interested in the topic of their presentation : she always liked mythology a lot, and she found ancient gods stories fascinating. She found a lot of information on Internet and took five pages of neat notes, highlighting the titles and the most relevant elements. 

Then, she thought about the long conversation she had with Percy earlier. She usually didn’t like this kind of long talk, about her feelings and the other person’s feelings, because she was thinking that in most cases, it was a loss of time. She wasn’t very good at communication, and didn’t like communicating. She always considered that talking about her feelings or about how she perceived things was making her weaker. She didn’t like opening to other. But this time, with Percy, she was glad they took the time to talk about the last week : at least, now she knew they were on the same wavelength, and it was really pleasant, and comforting. Without really realizing it, she had been anxious at the idea that Percy hadn’t mean to help her with running as she thought he would, or that he felt “forced” to do so. Now she knew he was happy to help her, and it made her happy too. 

On the next day, she was eating with Piper and Jason at the cafeteria, when Hazel joined them. It made Annabeth think about her meeting with Percy’s friends, Leo and Frank, the day before. Leo seemed to have a huge crush on Hazel. They were talking about the next football game and the victory from the previous week. 

“We are not playing this week, the next game will be in two weeks, but it won’t be in our school.” 

“Oh that’s good,” Hazel observed, “this way you’ll have more time to work on your Latin presentation, Annabeth! I still can’t believe you volunteered to work with Percy – he’s not a hardworking student, you’ll have to work for two!” 

“You did what?” Piper asked. 

Annabeth shrugged and answered her best friend :

“Our Latin teacher want us to prepare oral presentation, and next week topic is about ancient gods, that’s something I’m really interested in. So, I volunteered to do it, but Percy arrived late so the teacher assigned it on this presentation too, as a punishment, because we have less time than others to prepare our presentation.” 

“Oh, it doesn’t seem cool, especially if this Percy isn’t an hard worker…” Piper commented. 

“No, that’s fine, I already start researching, and I think one week will be more than enough to be ready! By the way, I have to meet him after lunch to decide how we want to organize this” 

“I hope that at least, he did some researches too!” 

“Well, he had a swimming practice yesterday evening, and we still have six days, so even though he didn’t do much yet, it’ll be fine.” 

Piper gave her a surprised look. 

“Since when did you become so forgiving to people who don’t work as hard as you do?”

“I’m not forgiving, I’m just understanding…” Annabeth defended herself. 

“You’re not that understanding when it comes to my homework…” Jason remarked. 

Piper laughed and gently slapped his arm: 

“That’s because you’re just lazy and using football as an excuse!”

“Yes,” Annabeth approved, “you should take Luke as an example: he’s the captain of the team but he still has perfect grades!” 

“Sorry I’m not as perfect as Luke…” 

Jason didn’t know about Annabeth’s crush on Luke, but he knew she admired the way he could combined his academic and sport lives. Hazel, however, didn’t know that: 

“I didn’t know you were a Luke fan!” 

Annabeth blushed. 

“I’m not a Luke…” 

But suddenly, she noticed Percy, who was sitting at a table not far from theirs, with Leo and Frank. The three boys were looking in their direction, and it seemed that Leo was energetically trying to convince his friends to go see them. Her eyes met Percy’s, and she gave him a slight nod. He took it as an invitation, and stood up, followed by Leo and Frank. Annabeth gathered up her things. She had finished eating, anyway. 

“Sorry guys, I’ll have to go soon…” 

Her friends took one look at Percy’s group. 

“Oh, I see” Piper said. 

Annabeth stood up. 

“Good luck with him…” Jason said, as if spending an hour with Percy was the worst thing ever. 

Percy stopped before arriving at their table, a little bit hesitant, as if he didn’t want to intrude. After what Annabeth told him yesterday – the fact that she didn’t want her friends to know about the run – it wasn’t surprising that he was careful with this idea of being with Annabeth’s friend. She actually really appreciated it. Percy was thoughtful. 

Leo, on the other hand, was pushing Percy in their direction. He seemed excited at the idea of being close to Hazel. Annabeth rolled her eyes and sighted. Maybe she could introduce them to her friends? After all, that’s what Percy did the day before. 

“So, uh… This is Percy, Leo, and Frank,” she said, pointing them, even though she knew that some of them already knew each other. “And here we have Piper, Hazel, and Jason”. 

Both groups looked at each other, Annabeth’s friends a little bit defensive, when Leo was grinning. 

“Hey, Hazel, what’s up?” 

Annabeth found it cute, in a way. Leo wasn’t very subtle, but he seemed to really care about Hazel. However, she noticed that Hazel’s attention wasn’t focused on Leo. In fact, she barely had listened to him. No, Hazel was looking at the shy big guy behind Percy. Frank was looking at his shoes. He looked up, crossed Hazel’s eyes, and immediately looked away. Hazel shook her head, as if to come to her senses. 

“Oh, hi Leo! I heard you did very good on the last Spanish assignment, well done!” 

“If you need any help, I’d be happy to help”, Leo grinned while winking at her. 

“That’s nice, but it won’t be necessary, I got an A too”, Hazel smiled, and Leo’s face fell. 

“Oh, congrats then…” 

The situation was starting to get weird, Annabeth, Percy, Piper and Jason watching Leo’s lame flirtation attempts, while Frank was still staring at the ground, not looking at the scene, and Hazel seemed a little uncomfortable. So Percy suddenly clapped his hands energetically, looking at Annabeth : 

“Well, actually I came to see if you were ready to work on our presentation?” 

Everybody, Leo included, even though he was the one who insisted to come to talk to Hazel in the first place, was grateful for Percy’s distraction. 

“Yes, I just finished eating! Should we go to the library now?” 

“If you don’t need anything else, I’m ready to go” Percy confirmed. 

“Perfect”. Annabeth turned to her friends. “I’ll see you later!” 

“Bye, Annabeth!” answered Jason. 

Piper was looking alternately at Leo, Hazel and Frank, and Hazel still seemed confused about the previous situation. Percy gave a little pat on Leo’s shoulder, and nodded at Frank before walking away. 

“See you, guys!”

After they left the cafeteria, Annabeth let out a little laugh. 

“Well, I don’t exactly know what just happened, but that was weird!” 

Percy nodded and laughed : 

“Yeah, that’s true. Leo overdoes it sometimes… well, often… It’s just that… Hazel’s really got to him, so yes, he’s been doing a lot, because that’s how he is…”

“I’m not sure that it really works with Hazel”, Annabeth remarked. 

Percy shook his head. 

“Indeed. But then again… That’s the way he is. You know, he’s a nice guy!”

“I don’t doubt that. I’m not sure about how things will turn out with Hazel, though…” 

Percy sighed. 

“I don’t know either. I just hope he won’t be too disappointed… He really cares about her.”

While talking, they had arrived at the library. Percy opened the door, with a theatrical air, before making a hand gesture to let Annabeth enter. 

“Well, let’s get working, shall we?” 

Percy widened his eyes when he saw how many sheets of notes Annabeth had prepared. He scratched his head, looking a little guilty, before confessing, embarrassed: 

“Wow, I have to say, I suspected you would have worked hard, but… I’m afraid my notes are a bit ridiculous in comparison…” 

He pointed to the single piece of paper covered with his writing in front of him. His notes had nothing to do with Annabeth’s : everything was written in pencil, in a barely legible handwriting, and there were a lot of erasures marks all over the paper. 

Annabeth gave him a reassuring look.

“That’s okay, don’t worry. I know you had your practice yesterday!”. 

She hesitated a little – after all, there were here to work! – but she finally added : 

“How did it go, by the way? The practice?” 

Percy looked surprised by the question, but happy, and Annabeth was glad she asked. It seemed important to her that she showed Percy that she was interested in what he was doing, as he appeared to think that he was less good or less worthy of interest than her (which was so wrong! The more time Annabeth was spending with Percy, the more she wanted to know about him!). 

“It was okay,” Percy answered, “of course everybody was disappointed that we lost our competition last Saturday but I tried to make them motivated again!”

“I’m sure you succeeded”, gently said Annabeth. “After all, that worked with me, so I’m sure you’re an excellent coach!”.

Percy blushed and looked away, and once again, Annabeth found him adorable. She noted that this happened more and more often, her finding him adorable, even though she preferred not thinking about this too much for now. 

“Uh, thanks, I guess? I try to do my best… I’m really crazy about swimming, so I it helps!” 

Annabeth softly laughed at his enthusiasm. She pointed his notes : 

“That explains why there is so much about Poseidon, in your notes… The god of water, seas and oceans… It makes sense”

“Indeed, I think he’s my favorite god! Who is yours?” 

Annabeth stayed silent for a moment, thinking. 

“Hum… That’s not an easy choice… But I’d say, Athena…” 

“Goddess of wisdom… Yes, it makes sense as well!” Percy smiled. 

Was this a way for him to compliment Annabeth’s “wisdom”? She wasn’t sure, so she chose to ignore his comment and to keep on talking about the other gods. It turned out that, despite Percy’s lack of notes, he knew quite a lot about the topic. He knew a lot of stories about them, even though he was sometimes mixing some elements. After they finished their study session, Annabeth told him she was impressed : 

“I have to say, I’m impressed by how much you know about ancient gods! I was a little bit suspicious at the beginning because you didn’t bring a lot of notes, but you did some research!” 

“Hey, who do you think I am?” Percy exclaimed, falsely offended. “Of course I’m doing my work correctly! I’m a serious student!”

Annabeth rolled her eyes. 

“Of course, how could I have even doubted it… It’s true that you’re always very punctual in class, and that you’re always very attentive… never daydreaming or anything…” 

Percy laughed softly, and it was a beautiful sound. He looked happy; even his blue eyes were smiling at Annabeth : 

“What can I say, we can’t all be like you, wise girl!” 

Annabeth firstly frowned slightly when she heard the nickname, not expecting it, but Percy said it so naturally that he didn’t even notice he had give her a nickname, and was still laughing, already thinking of his next tirade. 

“Well, maybe you’d do well to get some inspiration from me instead of spending your time in the pool…” Annabeth replied, pointing at Percy’s messy notes and then at her very tidy ones. “It would please the poor teachers who have to decipher your handwriting… seaweed brain!” she added after a slight moment of hesitation. 

After all, Percy had given her a nickname, it was normal that Annabeth found one for him, too! Besides, seaweed brain suited him well, she thought. 

Percy beamed, as if he was happy to see that Annabeth was comfortable enough to give him such a nickname, and that she didn’t mind him giving her one. 

“We’ll talk about this again tonight on the field, when you will beg for my wonderful running tips! We’ll see if you’ll still feel like disrespecting your coach, then!” 

Annabeth was about to respond, when the librarian appeared in front of them, looking disapproving : 

“Will you stop being so loud, you two? This is a place to work in silence, not to chat and joke! You’re preventing others serious students from working peacefully!” 

Annabeth suddenly stopped laughing and looked around her, ashamed to discover that, indeed, the students at the various tables around them had lifted their heads from their notebooks, and were all staring at them. She was already feeling bad, when something made the situation even worse, and made her feel awful: her gaze crossed Luke’s, who was working at the back of the library, and who was shaking his head with a sorry look, as if he was wondering who was this scatterbrained dunce who didn’t respect the silence of the library. Annabeth was mortified. She plunged her head into her bag, trying to hide, quickly stowing her books inside.

Percy, however, didn’t seem too taken aback by the situation, probably more used to being reprimanded by a teacher than Annabeth.

“Sorry,” he told the librarian, “We didn’t realize we were making so much noise. But we were done, so we were leaving anyway!”

The librarian looked at them suspiciously. 

“Let’s say that it’s okay this time… But in the future, please be more discreet when you come to the library!” 

“We will,” Percy assured, standing up to leave. “Are you coming, Annabeth?” 

Still awfully embarrassed, Annabeth silently stood up and followed him through the exit of the library. As soon as they were outside, Percy burst out laughing. 

“Oh Annabeth you should have seen your face! I bet that’s the first time a teacher reprimand you like this!” 

Red with shame, Annabeth furiously slapped his arm. 

“Stop laughing, there’s nothing to be proud of here! This is so embarrassing! I can’t believe it happened!” 

Percy was still laughing. 

“Come on, wise girl, it’s not the end of the world! By tomorrow, everyone will have forgotten about it…”

“Not me,” Annabeth grumbled. 

She was so embarrassed! And Luke witnessed the entire scene… Luke looked at her with disapproval! Was it the worst day of her life? She glanced at Percy. He had stopped laughing, but he still looked amused by the situation. His eyes were sparkling. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the worst day of her life, after all, and maybe it wasn’t the end of the world… Still, she wouldn’t dare going back to the library for a while! 

“Good thing we were already done for today,” observed Percy. 

“Yes, now that we’ve divided up the tasks, we can both work on our own, and put it together, let’s say… on Saturday?”

“Yes,” Percy agreed. “And then we could practice before the oral presentation... As long at it’s not at the library”, he winked. 

Annabeth rolled her eyes, but deep inside, she was amused. 

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” 

“You bet I’m not! The face you made when the librarian appeared… It was gold!” Percy grinned. 

And despite her desire to be angry, she couldn’t help smiling with him. It was funny how he had been able to completely change her mood in only a few minutes! He did the same thing the first time they spoke, after her first running session. She realized that she felt good when she was with him. Most of the time, he was calm, positive, and happy, and his good vibes were communicative. 

Percy looked at his watch. 

“Okay, so it’s 4:30 pm… At what time do you want to meet at the sport complex?” 

Annabeth hesitated. She had nothing planned, and she had no desire to leave Percy; they were having a good time, and even though she knew she would see him again a few hours later, she didn’t want to leave him now. 

“Uh… 6:30 sounds good?”

“Perfect! What are you doing, now? Are you going back to your place?” 

“I think so,” Annabeth nodded, “I have nothing planned so I guess I’ll just have a quick snack and relaxed for a while, read something or watch TV until 6:30… What about you?” 

“Same, I’m going back home until 6:30… Hey, maybe we could…” 

He stopped, and seemed to hesitate. Annabeth waited, all senses on alert. Her heart seemed to beat a little faster for a few seconds, and her mind was completely focused on what Percy was going to say. Perhaps he was going to suggest that they spend the next two hours together? Have a snack together, maybe? She wanted to, anyway ; maybe he did, too? 

“Maybe we could… walk back home together? We don’t live far frow each other…” 

Annabeth nodded, hiding the small hint of disappointment that had invaded her after she realized that Percy’s suggestion wasn’t the one she had expected. 

“Yes, of course, good idea!”

He smiled (Annabeth noticed that Percy was really smiling a lot; he was definitively someone full of positivity). 

“Let’s go, then!”

They small talked during the fifteen minutes of walking to their respective homes, and it was nice. Talking to Percy was easy : he was always enthusiastic, had a lot of unsuspected general knowledge, opinions about everything, and he was doing a lot of jokes. He had a lot of repartee, and they always had something to talk about. No awkward silences in the conversation. It was pleasant. 

They separated once they reached the level of Annabeth’s street. 

“Okay so see you in a little less than 2 hours, then,” Percy said. “I hope you’ll have lots of energy!” 

“I will”, assured Annabeth. “See you soon, Percy!” 

He waved before walking in the opposite direction, going back home. After this afternoon, Annabeth’s heart was light-hearted, even after the incident of the library. She felt as if she could move mountains, and was looking forward to being on the field to put all that energy to good use. 

The two hours seemed to last for an eternity. Annabeth tried to read her favorite magazine – about architecture in the world – but couldn’t focus enough to read more than two pages in a row. She was pacing in her room, and after one hour, she got changed, and decided to go to the sport complex early and to wait for Percy there. 

When she arrived at the field, fifteen minutes earlier than the meeting hour, Percy was already there. He was opening the main building. 

“You’re early”, he noticed. 

“You too!”

He raised his hands with a smile : 

“Guilty as charged!”

He tried two different keys before finding the right one. 

“Why do you have the key, by the way?” 

“Oh, I’m helping the professional lifeguard to watch the pool on Sundays mornings, it is open to the public from 9 to 12, so he gave me a spare key to let me train the other days”. 

“That’s nice,” Annabeth commented. 

“Yes, I’m pretty happy with this arrangement. With the new pool that opened last year on the other side of town, no one really uses that one anymore anyway. It’s just for elementary schools during the days, but it’s free after 6pm on evenings.” 

He put his gym bag on the table that was in the lobby near the vending machine. Then, he opened another door, which led to a small storage room. He took out a flipchart and grinned at Annabeth. 

“Okay, let’s prepare your training plan!” 

He seemed more confident than at school. After all, the sport was his territory, even though he was more a swimmer than a runner. He wrote “ANNABETH” in capital letters on the top of the shit of paper. 

“The key is to start slow. A beginner shouldn’t run more than 30 minutes at the beginning. Also, the point is not to make you hate running, but to make you enjoy it, so that you naturally want to run more. I think that maybe you shouldn’t try to run everyday. It would probably be too much for the beginning, because you’re not used to it, and you need to leave your body time to adjust. You don’t have any specific goal anyway, do you?”

“No I don’t”, Annabeth answered without thinking. 

“Great, so you can really start slow. That’s good…”

As Percy kept describing how she should train, Annabeth realized that in fact, she did had a specific goal… The “Luke run”, in less than two months… That’s why she wanted to start running in the first place! Okay, she couldn’t tell this to Percy, because she knew that for some reason – and she was really curious to know why! – Percy didn’t like Luke, so mentioning the race probably wasn’t a good idea. But… when Percy had asked her about a specific goal, she didn’t even think about the Luke race. It was her first motivation source, and she forgot about it for one moment. How was it possible? How did Percy get her to forget about something as important as Luke, and the race, and the date with Luke that the winner would get? 

“Hey, are you listening to me?” Percy gently asked. 

Annabeth shook her head to make her thoughts go. She could think about that later. For now, she wanted to fully enjoy the moment she was spending with Percy.

“Sorry, I got distracted for a moment. Could you repeat, please?”

“Well, well… Looks like tables have turned! Who’s not paying attention in class, now? That’s not really serious, wise girl!” he said, sarcastically. 

“Hey, you can’t compare this to class!” Annabeth protested. 

“Really? Why not?”

“Well, this supposed to be fun!”

Percy raised an eyebrow :

“Are you implying that school isn’t fun? Really, Annabeth, you’re showing your true self… Seems like maybe you’re not this model student everyone thinks you are, after all!”

Percy was obviously taking great pleasure in teasing Annabeth, and against all odds, this didn’t bother her, even though she was usually quite touchy. On the contrary, the situation amused her very much, because it was clear that Percy was joking and that he didn’t mean any wrong. 

“So, which days do you wanna run? 4 or 5 times a week seem enough to me for a beginning, but it’s up to you… After all, you’re the one you’ll be running!”

Annabeth stayed silent, thinking for a few seconds.

“Hum… Let’s say on Mondays, and Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Sundays?” 

Percy nodded, writing down the four days on the flipchart, before suddenly stopping. 

“What?” 

“Well… I didn’t realize that right away, but I just noticed: luckily, you chose days where I’ll be available, as my practices are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and my competitions on Saturdays!” he said, excited. 

Annabeth rolled her eyes and smirked:

“Really? How convenient!” she said, sarcastically. 

Percy’s eyes opened wide. 

“You did it on purpose?” 

Annabeth couldn’t help but laugh gently. He really was adorable. 

“Yes I did, seaweed brain! It’ll be more convenient, and more enjoyable!”

Percy blinked, and then stared at her. 

“More enjoyable?” he repeated, as if he was genuinely surprised she said that. 

“Well, yeah,” Annabeth shrugged, “the more the merrier! Plus what’s the point of running if I can’t even share my results with my coach just after? Last week, when you weren’t there, it wasn’t the same excitement, at the end of the run!” 

Percy blushed a little. 

“Oh. Okay… I’m glad you enjoy me… I mean, me being here, not me, me, but me as a coach, of course, I didn’t mean me as me…” 

Annabeth watched him stutter for a few seconds with a smirk, before finally standing up. 

“That’s fine, seaweed brain, I got what you meant! So, are we gonna keep talking for hours or will I finally be able to go to run a little?”

Percy’s expression shifted very quickly, going from embarrassment to defiance. He raised an eyebrow.

“Be careful of what you wish, wise girl, we’ll see in 30 minutes if you’re still so impatient to run!” 

He walked towards the door, Annabeth following him. He opened the door, and looked at his watch.

“Okay, twenty minutes seem good for me, for today. Start slow for the first three minutes, and you can progressively increase your pace.”

Annabeth warmed up for two minutes before setting the timer of her running app on her phone. She glanced at the side of the field: Percy was still there. She wondered why he didn’t go back inside to do his own sport session in the pool. He smiled at her, catching her looking at him. 

“You can begin whenever you’re ready!”

Annabeth took a deep breath, and started to run. 

“More slowly!” Percy said. 

Annabeth slowed down a little. 

“Yeah, like this, that’s good! Keep going at this pace!”

Annabeth was a little bit confused: she was really slow… Not that she was complaining, it was very easy, but she would never improve if she didn’t push her limits… But Percy was the expert, not her! For a while, she didn’t hear him anymore, and she thought that he was back in the building. Until she heard his voice, encouraging her. 

“Only 8 minutes to go, Annabeth, that’s good! You can go faster if you want!”

Wait, she had already run for 12 minutes? She didn’t see the time running! She didn’t feel tired at all, so she increased her pace. 

“5 minutes to go, that’s good!”

Annabeth was getting more and more out of breath, since she was running faster. Somehow, even though he was at the opposite side of the field, Percy noticed it, because he yelled:

“You can slow down a little bit, you’re doing good anyway! Slow down for two minutes, and then you can give all that you’ve got for the final minute!” 

Annabeth did what Percy instructed.

“Now, 55 seconds to go, speed up!” 

Annabeth gradually picked up the pace, and then began sprinting when Percy called : “20 seconds to go!”. 

She was fast. It was hard, but it felt good at the same time, pushing through her limits for the last seconds.

“5… 4… 3… 3… 1… and you’re doooone!! Congrats Annabeth!”. 

Annabeth decreased her pace, until she walked. Percy joined her in the middle of the field. 

“So, how do you feel?”

Annabeth was still panting a little, but nothing unbearable. Her legs weren’t hurting her. Actually, she felt as if she could still keep going for a few minutes.

“Not bad!” she smiled. “I didn’t push myself too much, today”.

“That’s okay, that’s what I wanted you to do. You shouldn’t feel pressure when you’re running”. 

Annabeth suddenly remembered her running app. She looked at her performance, and let out a little gasp.

“Oh! That’s the best performance I’ve done until today! But… I feel that I ran less fast than the other days? How is that possible?”

“The absence of pressure. And the fact that you enjoyed yourself,” Percy answered.

He gave her a bottle of water.

“You should do some stretching”, he advised.

She nodded. When she was done, they both came back inside the building. 

“Okay, so no training session tomorrow, as it’ll be Thursday”, Percy noticed. 

“But we have our Latin class, so I’ll see you anyway”, Annabeth said.

“That’s right”, Percy smiled. “Well… Great job today, Annabeth! Keep going like that, and soon you’ll improve your performances while having fun and enjoying running!” 

Annabeth grinned. Percy grabbed his bag.

“Okay so I’m gonna swim for a while… Walk back home safe, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow!”

Annabeth hesitated a few seconds. Maybe, as Percy was coaching her, she should offer to coach him? Well, not actually coach him, she knew nothing about swimming, but maybe timing him? Helping him somehow? Encouraging him? She also was a little bit curious: Percy always talked about swimming with great enthusiasm, and she was wondering how he was looking like when he was in his element. However, it was his moment. It seemed to be something really personal for him. She probably shouldn’t bother him. He already spent a lot of time with her today, he certainly wanted to be alone, now. 

“Have fun! And thanks again, for today… And for everything!”

“My pleasure”, Percy answered. 

And she knew he was sincere. 

On her way back home, Annabeth thought about Percy’s motives. He was genuinely happy to help her, for some reason, but she didn’t know why. She wondered what he could win from their deal : nothing, in appearances. He was helping her, and she wasn’t giving him anything in return. Except maybe a great grade at their Latin’s presentation. It wasn’t really fair; maybe, if it turned out that their presentation was good, she could offer to help him with his Latin homework? Yes, it sounded like a good idea : she would suggest it to him soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't plan for this chapter to be so long, but I got a little bit carried away and didn't know when to cut it, so I decided to just leave it like this, even though it's almost 5 000 words long!
> 
> I really liked writing this chapter, I like writing Percy/Annabeth scenes, and I also like the group dynamics between Percy's friends and Annabeth's friends! 
> 
> Leo can be seen as too insistant with Hazel, but even though she's embarrassed, she doesn't mind that much because she actually likes him (at least, as a friend!) so don't worry, Leo won't be harassing her or anything!!
> 
> In the next chapter, Luke will be more present! However, I barely started writing it, so I don't know when I'll update this story! Probably before the end of the week!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The library incident surprisingly leads Luke to notice Annabeth; Piper decides that Annabeth should use the "Percy Plan" in order to make Luke jealous and to lead him to ask her on a date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, here is finally an update!! I hope I will still have some readers even after a few months without updating... A lot happened, those lasts few months, I finished writing my thesis and then started a summer job, so I had less time to write... But a recent comment gave me motivation to go back to this story, and I just planned how everything will end... A few more chapters will be necessary for that, but I hope to update a new chapter this week end or next week, and then to post at least one update per week! 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you will enjoy this chapter!

When Annabeth woke up and realized it was Thursday, her first thought was “Oh no, I don’t have any running session today!”. But then, she remembered that at least, she had a Latin class, so she would see Percy anyway. She didn’t know why it seemed so important to her to see Percy, but the idea made her happy. Percy’s swimming practices were on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and so were their Latin classes. This meant that even when they didn’t have any running sessions planned, Annabeth would see Percy in class. So, she was going to see him everyday, except on Saturdays. It was good. But it was also funny to remember that only two weeks ago, she barely knew who Percy was.

She knew he was in her Latin class, but she never really noticed him before, either in class or in the school in general. Now, she was beginning to pay attention to him while they were in class, noticing that he was sometimes answering Mr Brunner questions (correctly), when he wasn’t daydreaming. She also started to see him more often in the corridors, and she wondered why she never paid attention to him before. Two weeks ago, he was a stranger, and now she was looking for him at the cafeteria. Funny how things could change so quickly!

She was grabbing her books in her locker, when she heard Piper calling her and running in her direction. She seemed very excited. 

“Annabeth! Annabeth!”

Annabeth closed her locker.

“Yes?”

“What happened yesterday exactly?”

Annabeth frowned. A lot of things happened the day before, and all of them included Percy. Piper knew she was working with Percy on their Latin presentation, but why did she wanted to know the details? Did Piper know that Percy was also her running coach? 

“About what?”

“Come on, don’t pretend you don’t remember! I still can’t believe it happened to you!”

Annabeth had no idea about what Piper was talking about.

“Come on, Annabeth,” she insisted, “it’s not like you get kicked out of the library everyday!”

Oh, right! Annabeth forgot about that. She had felt really embarrassed, the day before, but then she talked with Percy, and he made her forget about the incident.

“How do you know?”

Piper grinned. 

“That’s the best part!!”

“The best part?” Annabeth repeated, confused.

“It’s LUKE who told it to Jason!” finally burst Piper, very enthusiastically. “Can you believe it? Luke has been so surprised it happened to you that he told it to Jason!”

Annabeth froze. Piper was still looking at her, waiting for her reaction. 

“Wait… What?”

“Luke talked about you with Jason! Do you realize it? Because I can’t! Wow!”

Annabeth had waited for months and months for Luke to notice her. And it finally happened… Because she had been kicked out of the library?

“Oh god, I could die from embarrassment… I can’t even imagine what Luke must think of me!” 

Piper laughed.

“Yeah, I guess that’s not ideal for you… But still, it’s better than nothing! At least he noticed you, and was so surprised he had to talk about it to his friends!! Isn’t it great?”

“Well, from this perspective… I guess that yes, it is indeed great!”

Piper’s enthusiasm was infectious, and soon Annabeth was sharing her best friend excited mood. Piper was right : she had waited for a sign from Luke for months, and it was finally happening. Plus, if Luke was surprised with her being kicked out of the library, it meant that he knew that she was usually a very serious student… And if he shared it with his friends, it meant that he cared, at least a little, about her! The two girls were giggling, when suddenly Piper elbowed Annabeth. 

“Annabeth… Look who’s coming!” 

Annabeth slowly turned around. And almost stopped breathing. Jason was walking in their direction, but he wasn’t alone. Luke was with him. 

“Hey Pips, are you ready for your classes, today?” Jason asked, hugging his girlfriend. 

Piper kissed him and Annabeth looked away, a little bit embarrassed… but immediately crossed Luke’s eyes, who was closer to her than what she expected. 

“Oh, hello Luke, I didn’t see you coming…” 

“Hello Annabeth”, Luke smiled. “How are you doing?”

“Grea… Great, what about you?” 

“I’m perfectly fine. So, I saw that yesterday you crossed the line and became one of these noisy girls that get kicked out of the library?” 

Annabeth blushed violently and looked at her feet, embarrassed. Luke was smirking. 

“Oh, yes, that… It was…. It was the first time it happened, I…” 

“Don’t worry”, Luke added. “I know it probably wasn’t because of you but because of that Jackson guy. Be careful, Annabeth, I know that guy, and he’s not a serious one. He’ll only bring you trouble! I didn’t know you like boys like him… "

Shocked, Annabeth couldn’t think of something to answer. 

“I… I…” 

Luckily, Piper came to rescue her. 

“What are you suggesting, Luke? With what kind of boys do you think Annabeth should spend time with?” 

Luke shrugged: 

“With more serious boys, first, who can truly appreciate Annabeth for what she is…”

“Someone like you, then? Maybe you should volunteer to spend time with her!”, Piper suggested, raising an eyebrow. 

To Annabeth’s surprise, Luke didn’t seem to mind this suggestion. He glanced at Annabeth before looking back at Piper. 

“Maybe I should, yeah!”. 

Then he took a step back, staring at Annabeth, who was almost shaking. Just as Annabeth thought the discussion was over, Piper added: 

"You should seriously think about it and make up your mind before someone else does it before you...". 

She then grabbed Annabeth's arm with one hand and pulled her further away. 

"Come on here, Annabeth!" 

Still shocked by the exchange, Annabeth followed her without any comment. Only when the girls arrived in the biology room, still empty at that time, did Piper release her arm. 

"I can't believe what just happened!" said Annabeth dramatically. 

She dropped herself onto a chair. 

"No, really, I can't!"

Piper, on the other hand, seemed euphoric. 

"Great, great, great, that was just perfect! It was the perfect opportunity!!!"

"Are you kidding me? What did you do, Piper? Do you know subtlety?"

"Oh, Annabeth, there's a time for subtlety and a time for directness, trust me. Time is running out, Luke's gonna be out of school soon, and what I said to him goes for you too... Since you don't want to enter the race, you have to try to have a date with Luke before the race, otherwise the winner will go to the festival with him and it will be too late for you."

“Well after what happened today there’s no way he accepts to go on a date with me!”

“Are you kidding me? The signals he sent were so positive! First, he noticed you at the library, and second, he was jealous about Percy, so jealous he had to come to warn you against Percy! Can’t you see how perfect the situation is?” 

No, Annabeth couldn’t see what was perfect about the fact that her crush and hopefully potential boyfriend hated her new kind, caring and amazing friend, coach, and study partner. 

“Now, you only have to appear to be close to Percy in public. I know it will probably be difficult for you to spend more time than necessary with him, but that’s right what we need in order to keep Luke’s jealousy growing to lead him to ask you on a date!”

Annabeth shook her head. How Piper, her best friend, that usually always understood her so well, could be so wrong? Of course spending time with Percy wouldn’t be difficult for her. Besides, she couldn’t see how Luke being jealous of Percy could be a good reason for him to ask her on a date. Piper was still talking about the situation: 

“Yes, I don’t know why I didn’t think about it sooner… The jealousy is always a good strategy, even more with the enemy of the target… “

“strategy”, “target”, Annabeth wasn’t sure anymore of the topic of the discussion but she let Piper talk, rethinking about the previous conversation. Luke almost never spoke to her that much before. Luke warned her about Percy. Of course, he was wrong, she didn’t see how someone as nice as Percy could be trouble, but still, that was thoughtful from Luke to warn her if he thought that Percy wasn’t good for her. It meant that Luke cared about her! And maybe Piper was right. Maybe it would lead Luke to ask her on a date. Maybe her dream of two years would finally become true! 

She had trouble concentrating during class. She couldn't help but think of Luke, and of their conversation, and how the library incident had made such an impression on the young man that he told Jason about it, and then came to talk to her about it himself. She was still annoyed by the fact that Percy didn’t like Luke and that Luke didn’t like Percy, but she decided to let it go. Something obviously happened between them, but she wasn’t involved in it, and it was okay. It was their problem, and maybe it was even better that she didn’t know anything about what happened. 

Soon, it was time to go to Latin class. She met Hazel who surprisingly, didn’t hear about the library incident. Percy arrived just on time, panting. He probably has been running in the corridors because he was late, and the thought made Annabeth smile. She crossed Percy’s gaze, and he beamed at her. 

“Percy, perfect! We were only waiting for you to begin… Don’t forget to be here on time next week, because it’s your presentation about Greek and roman gods… How is it going, anyway?”. 

“Very good, we already worked a lot of it, we will be ready for next time”

“I don’t doubt it, especially you working with Annabeth! Anyway, we’ll see that next week, for today let’s do some grammar…”. 

After the latin class, Annabeth was hoping to be able to see Percy and to talk to him a little, but Leo was waiting for them in the corridor. Apparently, he had warned Percy that he would be there, because Percy rolled his eyes when he saw his friend waiting outside of the classroom.   
“Leo…”  
The young boy grinned. 

“What? I can’t come and wait for my best friend after his class? Oh, hello Annabeth, hello Hazel! How are you today? Hazel, did you understand what we needed to do for the Spanish homework?” 

While Hazel and Leo were discussing the Spanish assignment, Percy leaned over Annabeth and whispered: 

“He’s almost fluent in Spanish. There’s no way he didn’t understand the homework…”

“And Hazel isn’t stupid, she probably knows he doesn’t need her help”, added Annabeth.

“Yes, remind me to not ask him for relationship advices”, joked Percy. 

“Well, at least, he doesn’t give up easily…”. 

“Perhaps he should. Look at Hazel, I don’t know her but she doesn’t seem to be very receptive to his flirtations attempts…”. 

Indeed, Hazel seemed a little bit uncomfortable. 

“We should probably rescue her”, Annabeth observed. 

“Indeed. Hey, Leo, do you know where Frank is? Already at the cafeteria?”. 

“Yes, he’s waiting for us. Hey, Hazel, Annabeth, would you want to join us for lunch?” 

Annabeth hesitated. She was assuming that Hazel wouldn’t want to spend more time with Leo, given that she seemed uncomfortable with his flirtations. She tried to cross her gaze to have a non-verbal confirmation, but to her surprise, Hazel answered without looking at her: 

“Oh, why not? It could be nice!”

Leo grinned. The three teenagers turned to Annabeth. 

“What about you?” asked Leo. 

Annabeth was still unsure, but then crossed Percy’s gaze. His eyes were sparkling. Like often, he seemed happy, even if there was no real reason to be happy. Then, she thought about what Piper told her a few hours before: “now, spend time with Percy in public, where Luke can see you”. Even though she wasn’t sure that Piper’s plan was the best idea, at least it would the perfect opportunity to put it into practice. Plus, Piper wouldn’t find strange the fact that she decide to eat lunch with Percy, she would think that it is for the “making Luke jealous plan”, even if in fact, it was more because Annabeth genuinely wanted to spend time with Percy, because he was nice, and he was smiling, and he seemed happy, and she was feeling like nothing wrong could happen when she was with him – even getting kicked out of the library wasn’t that awful, when it was with him. 

“Sure! Let’s meet Frank there, then!”.

Hazel smile when she saw Frank, sitting at one of the table and daydreaming made Annabeth realize that it was probably not for Leo that her friend accepted to eat lunch with the boys. And considering the blush on Frank face when he saw the small girl, the feeling was probably shared. Leo would be very disappointed. 

Annabeth scanned the cafeteria to find Piper and Jason's table. They weren't far away. She exchanged glances with Piper, who nodded in approval and gave her a thumps up. Her eyes seemed to say "Well done Annabeth!", and Annabeth quickly looked away, a little embarrassed at the thought that Piper believed she was using Percy solely for her plan to seduce Luke. Hopefully, the atmosphere of the table was joyful and she quickly forgot about her initial discomfort. Leo was a real joker, Percy liked to tease him, and Frank, who was shyer, was quietly observing them, sometimes adding a relevant comment to the discussion, quickly glancing at Hazel to see how she would react. 

Leo didn't seem to notice the exchange of glances between Hazel and Frank, and kept flirting with the girl without any subtlety. Annabeth felt sorry for him, and decided to have a word with Percy about it later, so that the young man could prepare his friend for Hazel's future rejection.

“What is it?” asked Percy, pointed at the small notebook she always had in her jacket pocket. 

He quickly grabbed it. 

“Is it your plan for world domination?” he joked.   
Falsely annoyed, Annabeth leaned towards him to retrieve her notebook, but Percy raised his arm to prevent her from doing so. 

"Hey, give it back to me!" Annabeth protested. 

"Try to catch it if you can," Percy retorted, with a mischievous look on his face. 

Annabeth rolled her eyes: 

"Come on, how old are you?" 

But she still got caught up in the game and stood up, leaning on his shoulder to try to catch the notebook. In the process of doing so, she got her foot caught in the bottom of the chair she was sitting on just before and lost her balance. In order not to fall, she grabbed the first thing she saw: Percy's blue T-shirt. Percy immediately dropped the notebook and put his arms around her waist to stabilize her. 

"Annabeth! Are you all right?" he immediately asked softly. 

Annabeth nodded her head. 

"Oh, I'm... Yes, I just... Lost my balance..." 

Percy looked at her for a moment. 

"A wise girl... But clumsy!"

Annabeth blushed and tried to defend herself: 

"No, no, not always, I'm usually rather... agile!" 

Percy laughed slightly, still staring at her. 

"But that wasn’t a reproach, wise girl!" 

"I sure hope so, seaweed-brain!" 

They were interrupted in their exchange of glances by Leo, who suddenly exclaimed: 

"What's wrong with Castellan?" 

He was staring at something behind Annabeth's shoulder. She turned around to see what Leo was talking about: Luke was a few meters away, staring at them, a closed, indefinable expression on his face. 

"I swear, he's been staring at you for two minutes," Leo explained. 

Annabeth briefly crossed Luke's gaze, and he frowned, looking at her waist. That's when the girl realized Percy was still holding her. She coughed, and Percy quickly let her go, a little embarrassed.

“I don’t know what his problem is, but we better ignore him”, Percy coldly commented. 

“He doesn’t worth our time!”, Frank agreed, and Annabeth was surprised by his reaction. 

Indeed, Frank seemed to be a quiet and kind boy, the kind of persons who didn’t like taking sides in arguments. Everyone at school liked Luke, except Percy and his friends. Something was obviously wrong, but Annabeth wasn’t feeling like asking what. Leo’s comment about Luke already had broke the moment she was having with Percy, and she didn’t want think about all of this too much for now.

After lunch, the group walked in the direction of the lockers. Frank, Hazel – and Leo, because Hazel was involved – decided to stop by the biology class to look at the guinea pig, as Frank told the teacher he would take care of cleaning the cage of the animal before the week-end. 

Piper was already waiting for Annabeth next to their lockers. Percy stopped walking a few meters before they meet her. 

“Thanks for eating lunch with us, Annabeth. It was fun!” 

“Yes it was! I’ll see you tomorrow, then!”

“Tomorrow?” Percy frowned. 

“At the field, coach! Did you already forgot our schedule?” 

“Oh right! See you tomorrow, indeed!” 

“And have a good swimming practise tonight, seaweed brain!” 

“Thanks!” Percy beamed. 

And, as always, Annabeth was happy she made him happy. He waved at her and went in the opposite direction to meet Leo, Frank and Hazel. 

“This scene at the cafeteria was magical!! That’s even better than what I expected from you!!” Piper said, as soon as Annabeth was close enough to her. “You should have seen Luke’s face! It was priceless! Flirting with Percy like that… I didn’t know you had it in you, Annabeth!”

“But… I didn’t flirt with Percy…” answered Annabeth, confused. 

“Oh come on, everyone saw you fighting for the notebook and then you throwing yourself into his arms…” 

“I stumbled!” Annabeth protested. 

“Yeah, whatever, anyway, the point is : it totally worked! There is a football practice tonight, hopefully Luke will say something about it to Jason! I’ll keep you updated!”

Piper left, leaving Annabeth really confused; she didn’t feel like she had flirted with Percy. They were just having fun, like friends. Nothing more! 

On the evening, as they didn’t have any running sessions planned, Annabeth did more researches for their Latin presentation. She realized she forgot to offer Percy to help him with other Latin assignments, in exchange of his running coaching, and she hesitated to text him, before deciding to wait for the next day. After all, Percy was probably still swimming, at this time. And she didn’t even have his phone number! At least, she would have something to tell him the next day.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While everything was going well for Percy and Annabeth's developping friendship, a little incident happens when Percy overhears a conversation about him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I think I said when I last updated that I would post a new chapter soon, before the end of August... I'm sorry I didn't update sooner, and now I won't give you any estimaded update date anymore, since I'm obviously having a hard time respecting these deadlines I give to myself!
> 
> I started university again, so I have even less free time than usual, but I'm not giving up this story ; I already know how it will end, and I just need a few "transition chapters" before shifting to a new part of the story with some turning points. 
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy reading this chapter!

The next day, Piper was a little bit disappointed: 

“Luke didn’t say anything about you and Percy to Jason, yesterday. I’m surprised, he really seemed annoyed, seeing you so close to each other…”. 

Annabeth shrugged. 

“He doesn’t even know me that well. He probably has other things to think about.”

“Yeah, maybe… Anyway, keep going with the Percy plan, I’m sure it will work and that Luke will react soon!” 

Annabeth rolled her eyes.

“Come on, stop calling it the “Percy Plan”!”

“Why not? It sounds good!”

“It’s weird! Anyway, on another topic, I forgot to tell you yesterday, but I searched for the movies times for that movie we wanted to see this weekend… I wrote the times down on my notebook, let me just look at it…” 

Annabeth looked in her pockets, frowning. 

“I don’t understand, I usually always keep it there…”. 

And then it stroke her. 

“Oh no! I forgot it on the floor of the cafeteria, yesterday!”

“I think you have time to quickly go to the cafeteria to grab it before our first class begins”, Piper said. 

“Okay, I’ll meet you in class!” 

Annabeth ran to the cafeteria. Unfortunately, she quickly realized, once she got there, that the notebook was not on the floor of the empty cafeteria anymore. 

“Oh no. Oh no, no, no…” she mumbled. 

Her notebook was pretty important for her ; she often quickly wrote down some of her various thoughts inside. Maybe she could ask the janitor later if he found it, but she preferred not be too hopeful; her notebook was probably lost. 

The loss of her notebook put her in a bad mood for the entire day. 

“All of this because of Percy Jackson”, Piper concluded with disdain after Annabeth complained for the eighth time of the day that she was sad that her notebook disappeared. 

"What do you mean? It's my fault, I'm the one who was negligent!" 

"Yes, but I saw the scene, he was the one who stole the notebook in the first place!"

"Really, Luke was right," Jason added. "This guy is nothing but trouble." 

"You're judging him a little too quickly," replied Annabeth, slightly taken aback by the turn taken by the discussion. “We were only joking and playing together!”

Definitely, her friends seemed to be looking for any excuse to criticize Percy, and she couldn't understand why they couldn't see in Percy what she saw in him: an endearing, caring, kind and joking boy. A little messy and absent-minded, but overall very nice. 

“Yeah, whatever… I’m telling you again, according to me, you’d better not spend too much time with Percy”, Piper said. “I really don’t like this boy, and…”

Suddenly Jason, who had been nodding to show his approval until then, cleared his throat. 

"Um, um... "

"You understand, you're a brilliant student, and he's just the opposite... You deserve better than him!"

"Piper!" interrupted Jason, looking embarrassed. 

"What?" Piper exclaimed as she turned around, visibly frustrated by the interruption.

Then she followed Jason’s gaze. Percy Jackson was standing behind Annabeth and her. 

“Oh!” Piper froze. 

Annabeth still hadn’t see Percy.

“Pips, don’t tell me that…”

She slowly turned around to cross Percy’s gaze. His face was closed, his eyes close. He didn’t look angry or upset, not even disappointed. In fact, he wasn’t showing any emotions, which was worse. Annabeth didn’t know how long he had been there. 

“Percy”, she quickly said, “it’s not what…”

Percy raised his hand and she stopped talking. He quickly searched the inside pocket of his jacket to get something out. Annabeth felt even worse when she recognized what it was. 

“I remembered you forgot it in the cafeteria, so I went to grab it this morning before anyone steal it. I didn’t see you before, so that’s why I only give it back to you now. I hope you didn’t need it this morning”, he explained very, very coldly.   
His icy tone had nothing to do with his usual jovial attitude. He handed her the notebook without any word.

“Percy, please, let me explain, I just…”. 

“It’s fine, Annabeth. We have our Latin presentation next Tuesday and then you’ll have nothing to do with me anymore, if I’m not good enough for you”. 

“Percy! No! That’s not…”. 

But Percy left. She crossed his eyes one last time before he turned away, and this time, he was looking sad. Not angry; but sad, which was worse. 

“Percy…” she tried to say again, but he was already far. 

“Annabeth”, Piper began, “I…”

“Leave me alone, please, Piper”. 

“Come on, it’s not a big deal, you heard him, in 4 days your presentation will be done and you won’t have to deal with him anymore…” 

A wave of anger suddenly overwhelmed Annabeth. 

“Well, maybe I don’t want to not have to deal with him anymore!” 

“What? I don’t understand!”.

Piper seemed really surprised. 

“You don’t know him! Stop saying bad things about him! He’s very nice, and he’s a great friend, and I enjoy spending time with him! And I hope, I really hope, that our friendship isn’t over because of what he heard you saying…” 

“But… You never told us…”

“You wouldn’t have listened to me anyway, your mind was already set because of what Jason and Luke told you!”

“Annabeth, please, I…” Jason intervened. 

“That’s fine, Jason. I’ll see you two on Monday. Have a nice week end.”

“But and the movies tomorrow?” 

“I prefer to be alone right now. Bye!”

On her way back to her home, Annabeth replayed the conversation in her head. She was mortified. Percy, who only wanted to act nicely by bringing her her notebook back. It was a very sweet gesture. A nice one, because Percy was a nice guy. And he had been rewarded by listening to Piper’s disparaging remarks about him. Piper who had not even apologized. 

Percy only acted nicely to her, and Annabeth hurt him. It was already the second time that such a situation happened, because of her and of her lack of communication with both Percy and Piper. Because she didn’t dare telling her best friend she actually wanted to try to do the race because she was afraid that her best friend, who also supported her, would judge her. It didn’t even make any sense. And now, she couldn’t explain that to Percy, because it would mean that she’d had to explain to him that she wanted to date Luke. And Percy hated Luke, so it wouldn’t help to fix the situation. She didn’t know what to do. 

Percy and her had planned to meet on the Saturday afternoon to prepare their presentation. She was hoping that he didn’t change his mind about it, but she understood from what he told her that he would be mature enough to not let her down for the Latin assignment. Because he was really a nice guy. 

It was Friday, and Friday was a training day. But of course, she didn’t hope to see Percy at the field. She didn’t deserve it anyway. She still went to train by herself: she needed to change her ideas, and to let her anger out. She ran in a very chaotic way. With rage. Very quickly, very hard, to the point of being completely exhausted and out of breath very quickly, because her body couldn't keep up with such an effort for too long. But terribly frustrated because she hadn't evacuated all the tension she had. So she stopped for a while, punching and kicking angrily in the air, before she started running again, always fast, always angry. She stopped again to catch her breath. And repeated the operation several times, until she was completely drained, exhausted after about thirty minutes. So she fell on the grass, lying on her back, eyes closed, trying to regain control of her breath - and her life. After a while, she felt better. Empty, because exhausted, but exhausted from a good fatigue. Finally, she no longer felt overwhelmed. Definitely, running was useful! 

Slowly, she finally got up again. It was almost dark, and it was starting to get chilly. Soaked in sweat, she even found herself shivering. As she left the field, she walked past the pool building and noticed that the hall light was on and the door was ajar, which was not the case when she arrived. It was most likely Percy. Without giving much thought to the fact that maybe it wasn't him, or maybe Percy, if it was him, didn't want to see her at all, she pushed the door open. She had no idea where the door to the pools was, but in the locker room she recognized Percy's backpack and key ring. It was him, then, who was there. 

Without really thinking about it, she kept walking and soon found the entrance to the pool, and headed towards the old bleachers with peeling paint. She quietly sat down, and looked at the water. Percy was there, of course. At first, he didn’t notice her, and kept swimming. Annabeth never saw him so focused before. He was totally into it, not aware of what was going out outside of the water – which is why he didn’t notice Annabeth. He was swimming furiously, very quickly – the same way Annabeth ran, a few minutes before. After a while, he stopped swimming and lie down on his back in the middle of the pool, catching his breath. He seemed really peaceful, in his element. And suddenly, he noticed her. He seemed surprised, at the beginning, and Annabeth wondered what he was going to say. However, he just ignored her, and resumed swimming. He was moving through the water with grace and ease, and Annabeth almost felt privileged to be able to witness this spectacle. He hadn’t tell her to leave, so she stayed there, watching him. After a while, he stopped and went out of the water, grabbing a towel that was on the bleachers, not far from Annabeth. Their eyes hadn’t met yet, and Annabeth began to wonder whether he was going to say anything. For the moment, he was still ignoring her, gathering his belongings. As he started to walk towards the lockers, Annabeth decided to break the silence. After all, it was her fault, and he was probably waiting for her to say something. 

“By the way… I wanted to ask you, since a few days, now… As you help – as you helped – me with the running, I thought that I could return the favor. I had two ideas in mind, where maybe I could help you… if you want, of course! I was thinking that I could help you with Latin, even after our presentation, of course… Or I could maybe time you or assist you when you swim? Well I don’t know if you’d like that, maybe you prefer being on your own when you swim, maybe it’s your moment, and I’m sorry if it bothered you that I watched you tonight but… I liked it. I like the atmosphere, here, in the swimming pool. It’s calm, and we can think, but not in a bad way… It’s a little bit like a place out of space and time, and it feels nice to be here! Anyway, I know the swimming is your thing, so obviously I won’t be able to help you a lot with that, but it wouldn’t bother me to stay with you here, times to times, if you want some company, or if you need someone who can time you… And of course, there’s still the Latin. I really like Latin, so I wouldn’t mind at all helping you with grammar or translation, or anything, really… Anyway, it’s up to you. You tell me”. 

Annabeth suddenly realized she had to stop talking if she wanted Percy to actually answer. But she was so scared that he rejected her offer that she couldn’t stop talking. 

“And I insist, I was meaning to ask you that since a few days! It only seems fair that I… help you too!”

She stopped talking and raised her eyes, and for the first time of the evening, their eyes met. Percy’s blue eyes weren’t feel with anger, or sadness, or disappointment anymore. He seemed to be thinking, processing what Annabeth just offered. 

“I told you from the start that I wasn’t doing it for you to do something for me in return”, he simply said after a few minutes. 

“I know, I know… But I’d like too!”

He raised an eyebrow. 

“Really?”

“Yes! I mean… I think that we make a pretty good team. I improved a lot at running, and I’m sure our Latin presentation will be awesome – even though we still have to practise it tomorrow afternoon, don’t forget! – so it could be nice to… keep working together. You know, even after the presentation…” 

Percy still looked unsure. Annabeth suddenly thought about something that could help convincing him. She grabbed her coat and searched the pockets, hoping that she took her notebook with her. She usually didn’t take it with her for running, but she hadn’t removed it from her coat pocket yet, and indeed, it was still there. She took it out triumphantly. 

“Here! Look…”, she began searching frenetically, scanning through the pages until she found the entry she was looking for. “You see, I wrote it down here last week “don’t forget to ask Percy for the Latin tutoring”! So you see, it’s not a new idea…”.

He hadn’t mentioned the incident with Piper yet, and Annabeth didn’t want to, even though it was clear that she didn’t want him to think that she only offered him the Latin tutoring because of what he told her. She wanted him to know that her offer was sincere.

“Well…”, Percy finally said, “I think I can only be a winner in this situation! If it can help be to have better grades in Latin…”. 

“It will”, quickly confirmed Annabeth. “I’m going to need your old homework and tests to get an idea of your level and determined the grammar points we need to review, and then I’ll prepare a study program for us, and then I…” 

“Wow, that’s some enthusiasm!” Percy smiled. “I’ll prepare my old assignments for you and you can look at it tomorrow, while we practice for our presentation. At 2pm at my place, it works for you?” 

Annebeth grinned, feeling that she had won a fight, a particularly important fight. 

“It does!”

Percy shivered, and Annabeth realized that he was still in his swimsuit, and she blushed, looking away.

“Well, I need to get dressed…”

“Yes, of course!”

Percy pointed at the lockers room: 

“So I’ll just go and….”

“Yes, yes, of course!”

He started walking towards the locker rooms, when Annabeth called him. 

“Hey, Percy?”

He turned and looked at her, surprised.

“Yes?”

“Do you want me to wait for you? This way, we can walk home together, maybe? I mean, at least for a part of the way. Only if you want to, of course. If you prefer to walk alone, it’s completely fine, I understand, and I…”

“Annabeth?” Percy interrupted her.

“Yes?”

“Yes, I’d like that!”

“Really?”

“I’ll be quick, I’ll meet you in the hallway in 10 minutes!”

Annabeth smiled. 

“Perfect. I’ll be there. I’m actually going there, now. I…” 

Percy shook his head in amusement, and suddenly, Annabeth felt as if they had regained their old dynamic, as if the Piper incident never happened. She was glad they didn’t mentioned it, even though she knew that at some point, they would have to talk about it again. But she felt way too embarrassed to talk about it for now. She was lucky that Percy wasn’t resentful and seemed to be willing to forget about what he heard! 

A few minutes later, Percy came out of the locker room. His hair, still wet, was messy, and Annabeth found herself thinking that he looked adorable, like that. 

“You’re ready?” he asked her.

She nodded.

“Let’s go, then!”. 

They talked while they walked, as if nothing happened, and Annabeth felt good about it. She thought that she would really need to talk to Piper and Jason, because she realized that she could have lost Percy’s friendship after the incident, and it’s not something that she was ready to lose. Soon, their paths parted and they had to leave each other to go back to their respective houses.

“So, we’ll see each other tomorrow at my place?”

“2pm! Be ready to study”.

He laughed.

“With you, I always am! Well… See you, Annabeth”.

He began to walk away, when Annabeth heard herself calling, in a very shy voice:

“Percy?”

He turned in her direction, surprised.

“Thank you for the notebook. I was actually feeling very bad about losing it for the entire day.”

“No problem. It’s a little bit because of me that you lost it in the first place, so it’s only fair that I went to look for it to give it back to you!”

“And also… I’m sorry for what you heard. I’ll talk to Piper. And to Jason. I’m really sorry you heard them, and I want you to be know that I don’t agree with them. At all. Don’t doubt it, please!”.

It was dark, and Annabeth couldn’t really see Percy’s facial expression, but he stayed quiet for a few seconds. Then, she saw him nodding slowly. 

“Okay. I mean… I’m not that surprised. And it’s not as if I was a big fan of the football team members, Jason included. So… yeah. As I said, not surprised. Let’s just say that I prefer my friends than yours!”

“Piper and Jason aren’t usually that mean, I swear. I’m sorry you only witnessed their bad sides, today. They truly have lots more to offer, and they’re actually really supportive!”

“Well, I guess otherwise they wouldn’t be your friends! And if they don’t like me, them wanting you to not spend time with me is a proof that they care for you, and only want what they consider is the best for you. So… They seem to be good friends. Less good enemies, though!” he chuckled. 

Listening to Percy, an unexpected thought came to Annabeth mind “But you’re what is best for me!”. She gulped, having no idea from where that thought came from. But, when she thought about it a little, she realized that it was true. Since she was spending time with Percy, she felt better. She liked her life before, of course; but now that Percy was part of it, now that he was her friend, she couldn’t imagine going back to how she was before. Percy definitely made her life better, and she did not expect that from the beginning. 

She tried to say something, but the words were stuck in her throat. She didn’t know what to do with that information, and she needed time to process it. Thankfully, the darkness made it impossible for Percy to see her sudden change of expression. 

“Anyway, let’s not mention it again, okay?”

“O… Okay”, she managed to say.

“See you tomorrow, then, wise girl!”

“Good evening, seaweed brain”, she softly answered, looking at him walking away.

She couldn’t wait to see him again the next day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I have to say, I didn't expect writing so much drama for this chapter ; I wanted Percy overhearing a conversation about him like that at some point of the story, but later in the development, but while I was writing it felt like something good to include now. I'm sorry if Percy and Annabeth's fights sounds a little bit "repetitive" and always about the same topic (more or less the fact that Annabeth's friends doesn't like him, and that Percy doesn't like Luke and all the football team, and isn't a big fan of the fact that one of Annabeth's friend actually plays in the football team), but it's an important part of the building of their relationship, and there will be more explanation about it later in the story! 
> 
> (Also, a little fun fact about this chapter : one of my favorite movie is "Bridget Jones Diary", so Percy bringing back her notebook to Annabeth was a little parrallel with Mark buying a new diary for Bridget that I found funny to write )

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked the beginning of this story! Don't worry, even though Annabeth's training will be tough, it will mostly be fluff! And even though she has a huge crush on Luke, Percabeth is obviously endgame ;)  
> I'll try to post the next chapter as soon as I can! I think I'll do smaller chapter, but updated more regularly (many times a week, I hope!)


End file.
